Tuesday, October 01, 2024

A good idea, that doesn't work

 

Adding pickups to the Ghillie kit ought to be simple. There is a nicely moulded plastic part that just needs the wires slid through it, before being stuck to the bottom of the slab-like chassis, and the connecting wires to the motor soldering on. 

Now, I only need one wire as this loco has a live chassis, but I fitted it as expected. And there the trouble started dear reader. You see the problem with this system, is that the pickup wire (phosphor-bronze in this case) rotates in the hole. So, you carefully bend the ends to brush agains the back ot the wheels, and the end up pointing up or down. 

I tried superglue. I tried melting the plastic around the wire. Neither helped. 

In the end, I make a new plate from copper-clad, glued it to the bottom of the chassis, and soldered the wire to it. No more spinning in place, and the model now runs pretty well on the rolling road.

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