Lighting: Which non-insulated ring terminals for outer wheel pickup?

Without seeing your project it’s hard to know exactly what you need. I use these from Lionel for different things. Usually pickup things like this just to add to an order. On some applications you can cut the wire in half and solder a longer wire in order to use both rings.

Is there anyway to add a wiper that will contact the axle ? You can buy them and also make your own out of phosphor bronze sheet or wire.

@Dave_C posted:

Without seeing your project it’s hard to know exactly what you need. I use these from Lionel for different things. Usually pickup things like this just to add to an order. On some applications you can cut the wire in half and solder a longer wire in order to use both rings.

Is there anyway to add a wiper that will contact the axle ? You can buy them and also make your own out of phosphor bronze sheet or wire.

I made two axle wipers from .020 phosphor bronze wire.  I just need uninsulated ring terminals to attach to the truck pivot screw inside to pick up the feed.  Too bad about the Lionel leads, just placed a pretty substantial order during the sale last week.  .124" ID but they must be pretty thin (which is good).  The ones I linked from Amazon are #4 - #6 which is around 3 - 3.5mm.  That is about the same ID as the Lionel ones.  But they appear to be pretty thick.

John

Are you sure you want to put ring terminals under the truck mount screws?  That will be a most unreliable connection!  The better place is to bring a wire up from the truck and connect to the frame of the truck.  If the truck has plastic bearing inserts, you'll have to have axle wipers and connect to the wipers.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Are you sure you want to put ring terminals under the truck mount screws?  That will be a most unreliable connection!  The better place is to bring a wire up from the truck and connect to the frame of the truck.  If the truck has plastic bearing inserts, you'll have to have axle wipers and connect to the wipers.

Thanks John,

It's a Lionel Santa Fe baggage car that had no lights.  My grandson wants it to light like the rest of the set that he has so I am just going using the same setup as on the other cars.  The roller was available from Lionel, but the 2-axle wiper strips were not.   They are attached to the trucks via a small metric screw and the pre-threaded hole is there on the truck.  I bought the metric screws that fit.  I made axles out of .020 phosphor bronze wire, twisted the center into a loop for the screw.  Then just screwed them down.  They are under tension.

So it looks just like the others underneath except that there is a wire wiper instead of a strip.

All the other cars use small ring terminals on the truck mount screw.  It rotates with the trucks and seems to work well on the other five cars.  Short of that I would have to drill and tap another hole for the feed wire on the truck because the wiper mounting screw isn't large enough or deep enough to hold both.

Unless you have a better way under the circumstances?  I  would appreciate that as always.

Thanks,

John

Seeing it’s a baggage car with probably no interior. Can you solder a fairly flexible wire directly to the phosphor bronze wiper and get it into the car. Even if it means drilling a small hole in the chassis.

@Dave_C posted:

Seeing it’s a baggage car with probably no interior. Can you solder a fairly flexible wire directly to the phosphor bronze wiper and get it into the car. Even if it means drilling a small hole in the chassis.

Yes.  I could, but unlike the strips the phosphor bronze wire bends pretty easily and could accidentally touch the center roller from even the slightest drag on the lead wire.  As it is, with a young child putting the car on the track I will have to tell him to be careful he doesn't bend the wipers when he grabs the car.  I may end up buying some phosphor bronze sheet and cutting some strips instead.  With the strips you would only have the thickness of the strip and the thickness of a ring connector for the hold down screw to keep in place.  The loop in the center of the wire wiper is pretty thick which is why that is all the screw is holding down at the moment.

John

@Craftech posted:

All the other cars use small ring terminals on the truck mount screw.  It rotates with the trucks and seems to work well on the other five cars.  Short of that I would have to drill and tap another hole for the feed wire on the truck because the wiper mounting screw isn't large enough or deep enough to hold both.

As long as you get good contact, if the others are done the same way I suppose it should work if they do.

I added a 3D printed Archbar caboose truck to a Lionel woodsided caboose. I used the wiper from a stock Lionel caboose truck and adapted it to an Atlas pickup roller. I had it rubbing the wheels instead of the axle. It worked well. I ended up ditching the truck. It was what I wanted as to what the prototype I was modeling. It just  seemed like it was on steroids size wise.

I hate to be a party pooper. Seeing it’s a baggage car and the sliding doors give you some room to reach in. Could you just run the lights off a rechargeable battery with an off switch. Or use a reed switch with a latching capability and activate the lights with a magnet on a piece of stripwood.

Kind of the same idea as Dave has done, you could buy these kits from mthpartsandsales.com, and adapt them to whatever car you’d like……all this talk of phosphorus this, phosphorus that, these copper spring strips would be a whole lot easier to adapt …..

Pat

@Dave_C posted:

I hate to be a party pooper. Seeing it’s a baggage car and the sliding doors give you some room to reach in. Could you just run the lights off a rechargeable battery with an off switch. Or use a reed switch with a latching capability and activate the lights with a magnet on a piece of stripwood.

The side doors don't slide on this one.  The end doors open only.

John

@harmonyards posted:

Kind of the same idea as Dave has done, you could buy these kits from mthpartsandsales.com, and adapt them to whatever car you’d like……all this talk of phosphorus this, phosphorus that, these copper spring strips would be a whole lot easier to adapt …..

Pat

I'll have to check that one out Pat, thanks.

Too bad someone doesn't sell wipers like these only in O Scale:

https://store.sbs4dcc.com/sear...spx?find=axle+wipers

They have HO, N, Z but not O

John

I added pickups and axle wipers on the C&O Yellowbelly upgrade I recently did, turned out to be pretty easy.  The trucks have plastic bearings, so I needed the axle wipers to get power.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I added pickups and axle wipers on the C&O Yellowbelly upgrade I recently did, turned out to be pretty easy.  The trucks have plastic bearings, so I needed the axle wipers to get power.

Nice work John.

This is what I have so far:

John

I see what you mean that the wiper is very close to the pickup roller. You could use some striped wire insulation or shrink tubing over the wiper where it runs near the roller.

@Dave_C posted:

I see what you mean that the wiper is very close to the pickup roller. You could use some striped wire insulation or shrink tubing over the wiper where it runs near the roller.

Bingo Dave.

I love that idea.

Thanks,

John

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actually, put the wiper on the axle, less friction and it's easier.  You can also use flat stock to give you better connections to the axle.

Sorry John I don't follow (except for the sheet stock wipers).  The wiper is on the axle.

Are you saying to drill and tap a hole on the opposite side and move it there?

John

My mistake, I thought they were going to the wheels.  I find that the copper strips work better than the very small contact area of the wire.  As for insulating the wire, why not just put a bend in it to straighten it out and give the clearance, you don't want even an insulated wire rubbing on the roller in any case.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

As for insulating the wire, why not just put a bend in it to straighten it out and give the clearance, you don't want even an insulated wire rubbing on the roller in any case.

Not enough clearance.  Also, the phosphor wire bends too easily. Just grabbing the car could bend it especially a seven year old.

I am going to order some copper sheet stock and make my own flat wipers.  That's what's on the other ones and they don't budge.

John

The flat stock works well for me, I've done a bunch of these for various projects.  Here's one I did a long time ago for a K-Line Porter command upgrade.  I added this little coal tender to give me another pickup and more outside track connections.

It also housed the TMCC board.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The flat stock works well for me, I've done a bunch of these for various projects.  Here's one I did a long time ago for a K-Line Porter command upgrade.  I added this little coal tender to give me another pickup and more outside track connections.

It also housed the TMCC board.

Very nice John.

What thickness are you using for the brass sheet?  .025?

Thanks,

John

It's 1mm beryllium copper, I got a sheet of it a long time ago.  Since it has spring characteristics, I keep it for stuff like this.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

It's 1mm beryllium copper, I got a sheet of it a long time ago.  Since it has spring characteristics, I keep it for stuff like this.

Thanks,

John