Colin Criswell said:
Noel,
That looks really great and I would like to do something like that for the trains I run on our Club Module. So please tell me (and others) how you did that. I understand some electronics. It looks like you are using a servo to wave the hands, but what is driving the servos?
Colin
Colin…
We are from the old school running Track power with blocks and using Aristo T/M R/C’s
We have done a lot of stuff with servo, Reeds and Mags. as in our Ho layouts… but outside with our trains guys and open houses, we like to just use Batt powered animation.
We usually try to go to Flea Markets and try to find old animated Doll, Old toys or maybe old camcorder for the motors and gears.
Most Toy animations run on 1-1/2 V or 9 V batt’s. So its the cheapest way to go. Then go to a Dollar stores for batt. Most of our stuff will run for hr.s.
On the Obs. car , we mounter a warm drive motor with a few gear, then added a larger gear to reduce the rod throw. They were smallest enough to mounted them to the side of a seat in the car and run the throw rod down the center of the floor to the back end. By painting motor/gears and rod same color as the interior, its is hard to see anything moving in the car.
The Baggage car…
You can see how that one was made up using a small cam motor/gears with 1-1/2 v. batt under the car. Then add a On and Off switch. Very simple and added a small grain of rice light. Neater are using much power and will run a long time by it self. We now have around 20 some items made up now that we put out on the layout with our train runs and open houses and sure get there attn.
Anyway… it fun to make these movements and if you don’t mind cutting off some arms, legs,and etc. Just about anything can be animated.