Garden Railway Forum

Let's try this again... I decided to knock the shaft out of the rotor of the big AC motor from this Lionel chassis and put a gear on the shaft to drive it with a motor that will actually work for this application. Here's what I came up with... After testing with my model rocket launch controller which uses 4 AA batteries, I doubt the single battery would work. The globs of hot glue are holding the axle bushings in place because when I hammered them out to take the slop out of the axle they got all loose. One of the tabs broke off the motor so I stuck a hunk of copper in there.
It does quiet down with a load on it. I'm not quite sure what the body will look like yet.

Love seeing the ingenuity at work here... I always wondered how one would go about converting an old O-gauge AC drive unit for battery power, and this looks like one good option. Speed looks great and everything.

If you rotate the motor mount 90° so it sits transversely/crossways, you could probably hide the motor in the bunker of a vertical boilered loco like what you've already been working on. (And on the other end of the chassis, 4XAA could fit in the water tank!) Or build a seat over the motor and hide the batteries under a hood for a little diesel. Sky's the limit really!

This is what I've decided it's going to look like...

A great little centre cab loco. Cleverly hides the workings.

Rik

That looks pretty cool. It exudes that narrow gauge industrial feel. I'll be interested to see it 'in the flesh'

I've "done something"...
Here are multiple images of a very interesting rectangular object I made out of a cereal box and put on the frame........ I'll make the whole body out of cereal box material and then disassemble it and use the templates to make it from sheet metal from old paint thinner type cans.