Hydraulic controls?

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rkcarguy
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Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

I'm building a 12" gage Baldwin S-12, in my "12" working railroad" thread.
It will be hydraulic driven from a 15HP 420cc gas engine.
I want to fabricate a control stand and mount it on the riding car, with the throttle, brakes, horn, and light controls all on it in a somewhat prototypical manner instead of inside or attached to the back of the cab. (I have a terrible lower back). This was going to result in a whole bunch of wires, 2 hydraulic hoses, and 2 air hoses spanning between the locomotive and the riding car. In my pile of random stuff, I found a Mercruiser throttle cable, it's a nice thick stainless cable inside a teflon lined jacket, with stainless and brass ends with plastic jackets over the whole thing. Any reason I can't attach this to the hydraulic control valve to run my FWD/N/REV, and leave the valve up inside the locomotive?
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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote:I'm building a 12" gage Baldwin S-12, in my "12" working railroad" thread.
It will be hydraulic driven from a 15HP 420cc gas engine.
I want to fabricate a control stand and mount it on the riding car, with the throttle, brakes, horn, and light controls all on it in a somewhat prototypical manner instead of inside or attached to the back of the cab. (I have a terrible lower back). This was going to result in a whole bunch of wires, 2 hydraulic hoses, and 2 air hoses spanning between the locomotive and the riding car. In my pile of random stuff, I found a Mercruiser throttle cable, it's a nice thick stainless cable inside a teflon lined jacket, with stainless and brass ends with plastic jackets over the whole thing. Any reason I can't attach this to the hydraulic control valve to run my FWD/N/REV, and leave the valve up inside the locomotive?
No, that's how we did the 24" gauge engine we built for Brookfield Zoo. The only difference was the Engineer was riding in the cab, but the transmission was under the hood.

Instead of separate direction and power controls, like the big ones, you'll just have one control for both functions. Put the end of the cable on a crank arm at the lower end of the handle shaft, inside the control stand, so it's a pretty straight run into the hydraulic control valve. Baldwin and Alco engines had great big, cast metal throttle handles, not little plastic ones, like EMD. You can still 'MU' the air and electrics onto the riding car, just like it was a trailing unit.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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makinsmoke
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by makinsmoke »

Make sure you have enough slack in the cable
through the entire swing of the riding car front versus the locomotive.

I had a similar system on my three truck goose.
Swinging through the arc would actually move the cable at the transmission end speeding up the locomotive.

FYI, the Lil Gasser setup moved both the transmission lever and throttle lever, so as the engine/tranny went faster either in forward or reverse the engine sped up in rpm's.

Quite ingenious actually.
rkcarguy
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

Combine the throttle and fwd/neutral/rev?

I'm expecting to have to set a high idle which will bog down when put into "gear", and then work the throttle separately to speed up. Math on the hydraulic combination I'm planning to use says 48 rpm at the wheels at 1200 rpm at the motor, which comes out to 84 feet per minute. Then I'd speed the motor up to my "cruise" speed, with a max of 300 wheel rpm and 525 feet per minute(6 mph) at 3600 rpm.
My engine is capable of a lot more than that with the billet flywheel, heavy valve springs and Mikuni carb, but all the pumps I see are limited to 3600 RPM or less.

I'm kind of envisioning a bit of a small dashboard that will mount between my legs on the riding car, with the left face of it being 45* containing the throttle, brakes, and direction, and the flat portion having the gages and switches. I'll attach it with a couple of bolts, so that if I need to separate the riding car from the loco the control can be hung on the back of the cab.

If anyone has a picture of the controls from an S12 I'd love to see them!
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

Good point, almost thinking I should run the cables in a long arc as close to the coupler centerline as I can get, and pop them through about 1/3rd of the way forward into the locomotive. The carb is on the back of the engine, so I'm going to have to have a big loop of throttle cable inside the locomotive anyway.
I'm torn on tying the throttle with the direction. It would be better for newbies to operate it obviously as they can't speed up the motor and then drop it into gear, but I lose the realism and also the ability to neutral rev the engine during warm up or trouble shooting.
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NP317
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by NP317 »

Build your engine controls the way YOU want them, and don't worry about the Newbies.
Just teach them proper operation when needed! That's half the fun of operating our trains.
~RN
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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote:Combine the throttle and fwd/neutral/rev?

I'm expecting to have to set a high idle which will bog down when put into "gear", and then work the throttle separately to speed up. Math on the hydraulic combination I'm planning to use says 48 rpm at the wheels at 1200 rpm at the motor, which comes out to 84 feet per minute. Then I'd speed the motor up to my "cruise" speed, with a max of 300 wheel rpm and 525 feet per minute(6 mph) at 3600 rpm.
My engine is capable of a lot more than that with the billet flywheel, heavy valve springs and Mikuni carb, but all the pumps I see are limited to 3600 RPM or less.

I'm kind of envisioning a bit of a small dashboard that will mount between my legs on the riding car, with the left face of it being 45* containing the throttle, brakes, and direction, and the flat portion having the gages and switches. I'll attach it with a couple of bolts, so that if I need to separate the riding car from the loco the control can be hung on the back of the cab.

If anyone has a picture of the controls from an S12 I'd love to see them!
Sorry, I misunderstood.

You'll still need two cables for the throttle and direction, won't you? Or, are you going to use a servo to control the throttle, kind of like the big ones do?

Anyway, here's a picture I snagged off the innertubes of an S12 cab interior.
S12 controls.jpg
Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
rkcarguy
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

Thanks so much Mike, I've spent so much time trying to find an S12 cab interior with no luck. Must not have been searching for the right thing.
Yes I figure I'll need two cables, the throttle cable I'm not too worried about, as it's a pretty flexible one. I'll use the go kart cable for that one. The boat throttle cable I'll use for my shifter is much more stiff, I'll have to position everything carefully so it works properly as the train takes turns. Thankfully both ends of the sheath have a nice heavy bolt eye attached, so I shouldn't have any trouble with the sleeve moving and affecting the shifting once I bolt it down.
I'm limited for space to a single pedestal, so the brake will probably have to go on top of it above the throttle and direction levers.
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by Greg_Lewis »

Regardless of what you decide, be sure to have some sort of emergency stop or cutout you can operate from the control stand in case of control failure. I use a "hot wire" relay system in which current is required to hold the locomotive-mounted relay closed. If there is any break in the continuity, the relay opens and the engine stops. This includes a switch on the control stand and a second switch on the seat behind the engineer. While I've never had a control failure, I have had beginners in the engineer's seat and had to use the switch mounted on my seat located behind to make a stop.

Also part of the system is a plug that will pull free and thus kill the engine should the engine ever separate from the riding car.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
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rkcarguy
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

Good thought Greg. These engines are shut off by grounding the ignition coil, so a normally closed relay should do the trick. I've used dirt bike kill switches in the past on other projects, but this relay would be much better because you have to keep mashing the kill switch down until the engine comes to a stop or it will restart again.
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Re: Hydraulic controls?

Post by rkcarguy »

I'm looking at hose routing and all, trying to piece this together for reliability. I'm thinking that I need to mount the control on a "rack" centered above the fuel tank inside the body, with some short stainless steel pipes/fittings assembled into a "manifold" and hydraulic hose clamps all installed to it, and then use 4 of the same hydraulic hoses, 2 each going to each truck, to drive them. Then I'd have the pressure hose from the pump, return hose going into the fluid tank, and supply hose from the bottom of the tank to the pump. My boat throttle cable, would then extend into the body and actuate the control.
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