Screwy Nick

Realized all I was doing was raising the torque to the starting point of the motor, but that's as far as it was going to go, additonal pressure only brought the power up slightly. Time to remove some gears so I have more 'elasticity' over the operating pressure range I am looking for. Wheels start at same voltage with almost the same pressure, and increasing the pressure increases the voltage. More gear changes in my furture. I did add a small digital volt meter I stumbled on, will be a perfect addition to the rear of the engine I install this in so can see the generater output. NOTE: large gear just before the generater is only a spacer to bring the movement further out to reach it, the final ratio before that is the same as the gen, so there is no RPM change.

Love to see Max & Moritz. Know what you mean about UPDATES, all in the name of improvement, many times is not the case. If you would like me to change the wording of something that is not clear, just underline it and I'll do my best to put it into different words. Please Stay Well

Sean, when this Pittman motor is used as a generator with an airplane engine it powers an Aristocraft RS locomotive and easily pulls a short string of cars. Also the Mitsui generator I have is rated at 880mA output and is actually designed to mate with this turbo, so I don't for see any issues with that either. Of course must allow for the interference of on any occasion, so only time will tell.

Checked back on previous results and came to a couple of conclusions: While the triple compound gear set up was able to break the wheels loose at lower pressure, increases in pressure of 10lbs each showed no appreciable gain in voltage, final gears were too low. Best results I had was using a single compound gear, took slightly higher pressure to break wheels loose while small pressure increases gained much higher voltage readings. Verified those results today, in doing so found the plastic I made the gear holders with now have elongated holes. Going to make the permanent set up that will fit in the locomotive of brass, and my next postings will be with live steam. (crossed fingers emoji).

Jerry, creative is your locomotive build, please share your latest.

Thought this was a possibility, but with the difficulty of sliding the gears onto the shafts (had to use a vice) put it out of my mind. It appears that the torque on this gear overcame the friction to the shaft and was slipping without transferring power. Few straight pins solved that problem, will do that to all combo pairs in the final assembly. Could also spline the shafts, but think this is more positive. EDIT: found another compound gear doing the same, gave that one the same treatment. Only one more compound has to be secured, but to do that one must reconfigure as a gear from the next set is actually between them. Now wonder how much loss I have had in the previous tests??

I think I found the correct gearing for the Pittman motor. I specify that one because it appears to exert more drag than the Mitisu generater. This set of gears with the Pittman still start the wheels at lower voltage, but slightly higher pressure. Need a little more testing and certainly have to make a permanent cage for the gears, this Rube job is shaking it self to pieces, and when they get out of alighment exert pressure on the leading or following gears which slow down the whole circus. Once the wheels are in motion the voltage jumps. NOTE:; wouldn't surprise me if someone posted “you could have done the same thing with a ready made set by Tamiya for $2, if so PLEASE be specific as I haven't figured how I'm going to fold this up to fit in body, along with the boiler, the fuel can go in a following car.

Jerry, a 'gear head' has some idea what he's doing, 'screwy' people just flounder around till they stumble on something that works, thank you guys for the encouragement. Puttered a bit yesterday with different final gears at the generator and an intermediate gear with poor results. Noticed it starts to get the whole circus moving at under 10 lbs pressure so maybe it can support a little bigger gear at the turbine itself and give me more spin at the end, let ya know. Stay Well EDIT: on the 9 March I mentioned MOSFET circuit, looking for an explanation of why and how, stumbled on this this morning for anyone still interested. Don't know if I mentioned I tried a BOOST circuit and was disappointed in the results, and saw why in this video. Still learning, floundering mostly SCREWY. Stay Well.

When I first saw this gear configuration thought someone posted it as a joke because it was cartoon style, but the more I looked and read, it made perfect sense. Each combination gear almost doubles the torque of the driving force. This turbine is more for speed not power. Assembled it and to my surprise the additional power at the output gear actually overcomes the magnetic force of the generater at much lower RPMs, hense the wheels start turning at a lower RPM and voltage. Right now planning on raising the final gear ratio to get more voltage for more wheel speed, OR may even add another combo gear set, we'll see. I rearranged the gear placement as it was never going to fit into a locomotive. The final gear frame will be made of brass as along as I can accurately measure centers shaft to shaft.

03/18: found bearings I had used for a previous project and was going to install them in the frame holding the compound gears, realized the holes for the shaft weren't even on the same plane. Built another frame, again from a previous project pieces and installed the bearings Also made another frame incase I wanted to extend another gear, serious consideration. Letting the adhesive reach full hardness, will do more testing Sunday. EDIT: realized that I didn't. SUBMIT, duh. Did some testing this morning and like the results. Self starts, can see and hear it winding up on the video. Ultimate goal is to get it to start and run on the least amount of steam pressure possible. Good results. I started to turn away when it started. Once it got running I lowered the pressure and it maintained. Went one step further and added another gear, needs more consideration.

Thank you Sean. Almost made a big mistake today, was going to put a larger diameter gear on the generator shaft, and as I was looking at it realized that would actually slow it down. The compound gear that is driving that one should be made bigger. Thought I would accomplish more if I went back to digging that hole and gave this more thought. Really poking around in the dark here, but having fun.

Compound gears appear to be the answer. Made 1 gear change, producing more power (volts) with less pressure. So much so the truck wheels will self start without first allowing the turbine/generator to wind up in neutral and then applying power. All suggestions appreciated.

In my quest to learn about gears, came across an article about compound gears. Knowing the torque output of the turbine is very low, first need to increase that, which in turn will allow higher gear ratio on the generator, first attempt appears promising.

Researched gears, only got more confused. Tried a few different 3 gear combinations. Best I came up with were, 10 -30 -50 and 10 -40 -50. Going back to yesterdays 10 - 40 was the best. ALL needed to start with direction switch in N then once wound up switch to direction. Next will be live steam test. Sure wish I knew what I was doing.

Think I better explain: the Simpson is connected directly to the output of the generator and the Square D's are V and mA at the truck, which is spinning at that time. And once more are reversed polarity. No more loss the MOSFET circuit is removed, for now. EDIT: correction: ratio was 10 - 40.

Testing showed the MOSFET circuit was eating .9V, removed from circuit but will still use a reversing switch. Tested several gear ratios, settled on 20 drive, 40 driven. Gears need a little play within teeth, not exactly parallel and slightly angled produce less friction so more spin. Found the Mitsui generater can produce more power than the Pittman. Would like to do more comparison testing. I tested several different gear ratios and amused myself with a few other set ups, for example: All suggestions appreciated.

Sean, thank you. Chuck, I'll look into that. Kind of thought I'd find gears at that shop as those are 'car' guys so they would have stuff like that, I'll look there first before trying other forms of control. Preliminary tests yesterday showed very different results than the metal gears, they're lighter and being plastic offer less friction. Turbine starts at much lower pressure. Going to drop down to 4:1 and go from there. Yup, still having fun.

Went to the Hobby shop on a lark and found a bag of plastic gears of 5 different sizes. Going to convert in the hopes of reaching my goal of only hearing the whine of the turbine and seeing the steam exhaust.

Think I made a minor breakthrough. With just the generator and motorized truck in the circuit the turbine/generator would be under heavy load until the rpm's produced enough power to break inertia on the the truck, (air pressure at sometimes 80lbs) then would wind up and the truck would spin along and I could drop the pressure. I installed the MOSFET circuit that Jerry designed hoping the truck motor would start at lower voltage, inconsistent results. While staring down at the circuit my eyes fell on the switch that reverses polarity to the truck motor. Start the turbine while switch is in N, let it wind up to it's peak at 55lbs pressure than close the switch in either direction. The wheels started immediately with lower voltage than if it was applied gradually. Need to play with this more, adjusting the pot on the circuit board to determine start voltage. Mean time, if Ray could jump in here and explain what the MOSFET circuit does, as I don't fully understand, much appreciated.

Sean, thank you for the encouragement, hoping to make some progress today. Received one of the belt drives I ordered, the other one is 'in transit', so again "any day now".

Chuck, thank you. Having much better luck with the burner than the turbine, still floundering with the drive ratios. Think I have a long way to go, but I'm having fun.

Finally got this one under control. Turned out to be partial blockage of the jet, and needed just a little more air. Very happy with the results. Love all those little blue tips, HOT. HOT. HOT.

That has come a long way since this pic was taken. Know what you mean about loosing dexterity, get my daily exercise picking up what I dropped. I'm sure in the directions gives the specs of the motor required, should be able to find a like one on line. Don't stop here, keep us informed, thank you.

The #8 arrived and couldn't help but to test it. As I had expected needs more air so one of my tasks today is to refine the burn.

Jerry, beautiful locomotive. Tell us about it please.