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Will be a bit late closer to 2pm, youngest had stomach flu and was up all nite so I have to take oldest to ballet
We met up yesterday and decided the following:
The incline will run from a regular LUG table to a short height LUG table. It will be at a pitch of roughly 30 degrees
We will use a drum mechanism at the top and each car will be on its own string. On one side the string comes from the top side of the drum and the other side, the string will come from the bottom.
I am going to attempt to make a polarity switch mechanism for the top structure so when the cars hit the top, the motor spinning the drum reverses direction.
We will use standard RC track- 7 lengths long.
Our next meeting will be at Josh’s on Saturday February 3rd.
Sorry I couldn’t make the last build… I had a fever of 102 and was in bed most of the weekend and missed work on Monday… and for the 3rd I’m flying back from a business trip in Belgium so can’t make it…
Walter, I plan on being there on Saturday, Feb. 3rd. I’ve made some progress on improving the support structure for the incline, and on building a second car. If you’ve been able to work on the mechanical drum system and toggle switch we discussed last time, then I think it would be worthwhile to put the them together and see how well they work.
If we decide to move the date out, Feb. 10th is not good for me. Next best day would be Feb. 17th, the same day as the Q1 meeting.
@rcgrier3406 Sounds good. I’m planning on be there at 1:30.
We have a working prototype!! The cars each have separate cables on their own drums (one under wind and one over wind), on a single motor and axle, with a toggle switch activated as each car reaches the top to reverse the direction of the motor.
We got this working last Saturday at Josh’s and ran it for about 20 minutes without any hick-ups!! A little rough around the edges, and still lots of work to do and details to work out, but at least the basic mechanism works!!
We had a good build session on the 3rd. I probably wont be at the Q1 meeting this weekend since my wife is running a race out of state. I want to schedule a build session for Saturday the 25th of February. Any thoughts on this?
fyi, bought 10 new 200cm thin strings, sealed in their lego boxes.
Awesome!
the 25th is a sunday, so I think you meant the 24th. I have the girls that weekend, which is still fine for you all to come over, just know that I may not be able to participate.
Saturday Feb. 24th works for me. I should have the modifications we discussed to the track support structure finished by then. FYI, I also tried the smaller wheels on one of the cars, and they didn’t work very well. The only axle I could get to work with those small wheels was the same as is used for wagon wheels, and the wheels tend to skid on the incline rail rather than rotate. I’ll bring them to the meeting, but right now I prefer to stay with the normal train wheel set.
@whitesidewjw, Tom Frost built a differential for us that will build in a “pause” between when the motor reverses direction and when the drums start rotating and the cars start moving again. Can’t wait to try it out on Sat.!
What time are we looking at Saturday and who is coming?
I’ll be taking the girls to a birthday party, leaving the house around 2:15 and I’ll be back after 4. I have no problem with people being here, just wanted to make sure you knew my plans.
I would plan on getting there by 1:30 same as last time, but since we haven’t heard from Walter yet, I guess that’s tentative at the moment. If Walter can’t make it on Sat., then we would need to reschedule for another weekend.
I’ll be there from 1:30 to 4:00 tomorrow. My next few weekends are busy.
@tfdesigns Will you be able to make it? I want to try to work your drum design into the incline.@whitesidewjw, @tfdesigns. Walter, Tom gave me his differential last weekend at the Q1 meeting, so I’ll have it with me tomorrow to try out on the drums. It just mounts between the motor and the drive shaft for the drums, so it should be pretty easy to incorporate it.
you’re all good to park in the driveway. I put my van at the end to make sure I could get out to go to the birthday party.
@whitesidewjw @rcgrier3406 Just saw the video that Walter posted to Flickr. The incline is looking great. The slower speed looks much better and from the video seemed like it was still actuating the polarity switch okay. To create a longer pause between cycles, the timing output from the differential could be geared down between the differential and the “timing lever”. Sorry I could not make it today!
@whitesidewjw. Walter, before I left Josh’s I played around some more with the one car that we were having problems with. I noticed that the downhill wheelset was consistently the one coming off the track, and that one wheel on it looked a little “wobbly”, so I switched it with the uphill wheelset on that same car. Ran things for 10-15 minutes after that with no issues. I’ll run it some more this week to confirm, but hopefully it was just that wheelset and the problem is solved!
@tfdesigns. Tom, the differential worked great, as you saw, and actually was the thing that slowed the speed down. Thanks for the advice on how to adjust the timing output to increase the cycle time!I wonder if speeding it up would lessen the jostling it does to flip the switch. I also wonder how much that jerk movement would be visible/noticeable once it’s “inside” the buildings.
I wonder if speeding it up would lessen the jostling it does to flip the switch. I also wonder how much that jerk movement would be visible/noticeable once it’s “inside” the buildings.
If you look at the 2 videos, it’s definitely “smoother” at the higher speed, but still jerky. “Inside” the building will help with the aesthetics, but we still want to work on making that switch throw smoother if we can.
work on making that switch throw smoother if we can.
I have a couple of ideas, I would like to try to make the next ‘incline day’ if I can
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