Bachmann K27 on steroids...

DGE-Railroad

DGE-Railroad

The Orchard Line
Country flag
I'm not sure whether this has been posted before but having stumbled across it, I thought it worth posting. I think it's probably one of the most impressive implementations of smoke I've seen and it's running on a nice railroad too :)

It looks as though the heart of the system is an ESU XL4. Goodness knows how much effort went into the sound file. Those ESU Programmers are flexible but seem to need a PhD in to make sense of them once you get into the heavy customisation.

I'm still enquiring about the custom smoke units and the control system. The Johnson bar is servo-animated from the cab thanks to the working Bachmann mechanism. The bell is also rumoured to be animated and it has a beautiful auto-coupler .

One thing I cant help but notice is the somewhat jerky low speed motion of the drivers (strange as the loco itself seems to be disconnectedly smooth)
 
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DGE-Railroad said:
I'm not sure whether this has been posted before but having stumbled across it, I thought it worth posting. I think it's probably one of the most impressive implementations of smoke I've seen and it's running on a nice railroad too :)


Sound is courtesy of an ESU XL4. I'm still enquiring about the smoke units and control system. The reversing linkage is animated and the bell is rumoured to be animated too.

One thing I cant help but notice is the somewhat jerky low speed motion of the drivers (strange as the loco itself seems to be disconnectedly smooth)
Click to expand...
Very nice for my money I reckon there could be up to 4 smoke units present, such a shame it is not pulling a Train.
 
Very impressive. Can smoke units be made to puff black or at least grey smoke? The slight hiccup in the film is that the chimney smoke seems too clean.
And I didn't snigger at the title, honest
 
Paul M said:
Can smoke units be made to puff black or at least grey smoke?
Click to expand...

The answer from my Chemist-friend: Not easily..

What tends to colour smoke, is unburnt particulates.. - And we all know what is thought of those, these days?

It would also make a mess (as it settled) if used inside.

Best suggestion, is the 'coal' or 'diesel' scented oils.. - I find you can use these diluted, as they are a lot more expensive. The aroma does tend to trigger the grey-cells into overlooking more of the failings, of non-scale smoke.
 
So I received a reply from the chap who did the conversion. It uses 7 custom-designed smoke units apparently - the one for the blowdown as an output of 60w

I understand now how the bell, automatic coupler and Johnson bar work and intend to implement these on mine - the mechanics for them seem pretty simple. It's just a case of getting the packaging sorted out!
 
Greg Elmassian said:
Did he count out the 7 units?

My guesses:
1. smokestack
2. dynamo
3. whistle (I am guessing)
4. blowdown
5. cylinder cocks (could be one, two or 4 here... hard to tell looking closely)


Greg
Click to expand...
Hey Greg. He didn't unfortunately. I'd come up with the same checklist and assumed 2 for the cylinders (perhaps 2 for the blowdown) however, we conversed in German so something may have gotten lost in the translation - I wonder if "7 smoke units" may actually refer to 7 smoke outlets. I don't know how you'd shoe-horn that many devices in the boiler section.

He reports he wouldn't want to do another one. It was weeks of stress which he doesn't want to revisit (I think I can understand that :) ) I've asked whether he'd share the smoke unit information so I'll see what he says about that.
 
Yeah, I do indeed count 7 outlets:

1 smokestack
2 dynamo
3 blowdown
4 left cylinder front cylinder cock
5 left cylinder rear cylinder cock
6 & 7 repeat on right.

Watching the video closely, I do see the 2 individual outlets on the cylinder, and indeed variation between the two.

Anyway, clearly it was a huge amount of work, it must be track powered also, no way batteries would support even just the 60 watt unit.

Greg
 
Greg Elmassian said:
Yeah, I do indeed count 7 outlets:

1 smokestack
2 dynamo
3 blowdown
4 left cylinder front cylinder cock
5 left cylinder rear cylinder cock
6 & 7 repeat on right.

Watching the video closely, I do see the 2 individual outlets on the cylinder, and indeed variation between the two.

Anyway, clearly it was a huge amount of work, it must be track powered also, no way batteries would support even just the 60 watt unit.

Greg
Click to expand...


Nice work, spotting where they all are Greg :) Yeah, that'd explain them.
The thing is DCC, apparently there's a 10A booster to the track. I'm not surprised...

It's a nice piece of work for sure. On a parr with the Kiss and KM1 stuff. The packaging's the trick I guess. I'm interested to see if my ESU smoke modules could get something comparable (maybe not the blowdown :) ). I'm unsure whether the ESU smokers have dynamic fan braking which I'm sure makes a difference to the distinct on-/off action, especially for the smoke stack.

I'll have to have a play. I'm bench-testing at the moment though and the ESU decoder tester isn't sufficient to run the smoke unit, so I need to knock together a power switcher in order to use it. I was gonna base it on Thor's great work here
 
If I remember correctly, unless it is a different loco, a video of this on the same line came out a couple of years back, and I think that the owner said then, that the smoke units system had been created by an acquaintance of his for not a small fee..
 
You can add dynamic fan braking by adding a diode across the fan motor leads. That's all that is needed.

Using a "smart" smoke unit actually gives you less control. I'd do the "direct drive" style where the fan and the heater are directly wired to the decoder. I do this with Zimo and QSI



Greg
 
DGE-Railroad said:
I'm not sure whether this has been posted before but having stumbled across it, I thought it worth posting. I think it's probably one of the most impressive implementations of smoke I've seen and it's running on a nice railroad too :)

It looks as though the heart of the system is an ESU XL4. Goodness knows how much effort went into the sound file. Those ESU Programmers are flexible but seem to need a PhD in to make sense of them once you get into the heavy customisation.

I'm still enquiring about the custom smoke units and the control system. The Johnson bar is servo-animated from the cab thanks to the working Bachmann mechanism. The bell is also rumoured to be animated and it has a beautiful auto-coupler .

One thing I cant help but notice is the somewhat jerky low speed motion of the drivers (strange as the loco itself seems to be disconnectedly smooth)
Click to expand...
Yes I have seen this guys work before but not sure if it was on the forum or somewhere else,quite a few of his videos on u tube and worth a look,:cool:If I recall correctly his wife does a lot of the scenic work and that's getting the SW involved!
 
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