Automatic brake hoses

[Madman]

Once you get through all of this guys blabbering, you can watch these brake hoses operate. This is something, we in the larger scale, should be able to scratch build without too much effort.

http://youtu.be/fv7AbCzuJmg

 

[dunnyrail]

This ought to be a pretty easy thing to do. But In his case I totally fail to see the point of clipping off the Loop that makes the Kd's uncoupling function work. Still no matter. For most of that do not use USA Stock or KD's a small rare earth Magnet attached to each of a flexible Coupling Hose should work fine. My only worry would be to get Magnets that are not too powerful so that when you uncouple a wagon with say LGB normal couplings, the things do attract each other back and recouple. I do have some very small Rare Earth Magnets that would do just this.

The other thing about this is that the Hoses if you had two (as in European practice) on each vehicle could be used for Power Supply between say Coaches for lighting Circuits. I am pretty sure that Maplin used to sell small magnets with some wire on for hooking up to say AA batteries. But I cannot find them in the cat on line now. However I think that these would have been a bit big and powerful for our needs. Would be interesitng to know the source of the Batteries Only that were used in the product that Mr Blabber Mouth (on the You Tube Vid) is talking about.
JonD

 

[James Day]

As Dan says, once you get through all the blabber......... My advice to everyone is start the video playing at about 6mins 20 seconds!

The self joining hoses are really good seem to work well and look superb, in HO.

The only 'hoses' connecting my g scale stock at present are modern LGB lighting leads. These are clumsy and unsightly, but work well which is my reason for adopting them and sticking with them. They are much more positive and less fiddly than the horrid miniature banana type plugs that LGB supplied in 70s and early 80s. I tried using other types of miniature electrical connectors before settling on the new LGB type.

Presumably the real goal with doing the sort of thing shown in the video (in G scale) is to make the hose not only couple, but do something useful, such as carrying lighting power, making supplementary lighting leads redundant?

That said, many modellers today are probably having each of their vehicles independantly lit. I remain firmly wedded to a pick up van/coach at the rear of the train, passing the power through by leads between coaches,. My reasoning is to keep the ancillary pick ups well clear of my block section isolation, to avoid interference/over-running etc.

Perhaps I had better get my coat?

James

 

[bobg]

I gave up, less than halfway through! Why use one word when 10,000 will do. Talk about verbal diorrhoea. :wits:

 

[dunnyrail]

Sometimes you just have to suffer the VD for useful info.
JonD

 

[yb281]

Somebody already makes something similar for G / 16mm scales. Somebody I know uses them. The ones I'm thinking of are not magnetic, I seem to remember they lock together mechanically?

I'll have a butchers, see if I can find who makes them.

 

[yb281]

OK, turns out it's Brandbright (sorry, rubbish website).

http://www.brandbright.co.uk/ ...l, like I said, with a mechanical connection.