Well, I finally have it: THE way to make the moving boats on lake work well, dependably, and cheap. Version 3.0 is the final version I will use. And ultimately it was so simple to make work: I am almost embarrassed that it took so much research and testing and two previous versions before getting it right this time.
The ski boat, the James Bond boat, the Lionel cruiser, and the big cruiser yatch all work as well or better than they did in the Version 2.0 videos. The video below shows a sailboat: version 3.0 has adjustable speed so I can run a fast ski boat or this much slower sailboat. Below that i briefly describe how Version 3.0 works in case others would like to try: this works well enough that I would recommend it.
Before continuing, yes - you can see the "wake" of the boat on the lake surface because I dusted it with a powder normally used to weather locos and rolling stock: I was working underneath the layout to adjust the system and needed to know exactly what route the boat was taking above, so I did that. I will vacuum it up once done.
For anyone who has not seen videos of version 1.0 and 2.0, its done with magnets in the boat and under the surface. The lake surface is 5 mm laun plywood painted with several coats of oil base glossy paint.
The question was always what to use to move the magnets underneath the lake surface to pull the boats.
The factor that "got in the way" was magnetic clamping force: to really attract and "move" even a very small, light boat a good deal of magnetic force is needed. All my work proved: use alot of magnetic force below and a small bar magnet above, and err on the side of having a lot of magnetic attract.
I started out using powerful magnets above and below -- and keeping them as close together as possible. Maximizing magnetic attraction guarantees the mechanism "gets the boat's attention." But the two magnets pulled toward each other hard onto either side of the wooden lake surface creating a lot of "clamping friction." You can minimize that with felt pads as for lamps on smooth table tops, etc, but a lot of resistance to movement is still created.
Version 1.0 used a loop of Superstreets track under the lake, with SS vehciles running just under lake surface pulling the magnets, with a small mechanism I built on the top of each vehicle to keep the magnet right up against the underside of the lake surface so it was as close to the boat's magnet as possible. The SS vehicles had neither the power nor the traction to really handle the clamping load when using powerful magnets. I had to reduce magnet strength to 'just barely enough' in order to reduce clamping force to what they could handle, and still the SS vehicles would stall sometimes, and they burned out motors routinely - about every 6 to 12 hours of running.
Version 2.0 nuked this problem by using a powerful A120V motor, pulleys, and a very long (and expensive) V belt running in a loop just under the lake surface. Attached to the belt was a very powerful (2" by 1" inch square neodymium bar magnet. It worked really well, but: I was restricted to "pulley loop" routes for the boat, the motor ran in only one direction and at one speed, and despite a lot of work it remained surprisinly noisy. What it taught me though, was that with enough magnet power below the lake, the magnets below did not even have to come close to the bottom of the lake surface, they could be 1/4 inch below and still pull the boat reliably. This elminated all the friction below entirely, even if the great magnetic force created alot in the boat above.
So back to trying Superstreets track like in Version 1.0, but now with the track positioned so that the SS vehicles could carry a powerfu neodymium magnet a full 1/2 inch below the lake surface. And it almost worked -- but then "clunk" the magnets would literally pull the SS vehcile up off the track and suspend it from the bottom of the lake!! I added a half pound of lead shot to keep the SS vehcile on the road. They stay on the track but don't have enough traction. A full pound - now they do but they slow a lot even on straight sections - the just don't have the power.
Version 3.0 uses SS track (or O-27 where the lake is wide enough) and the BEEP shown in the photo below, un-modified except for the two 1/2 x 1/2 inch neodymium magnets duct taped to it. The top of the magnets rides a full 1/4 below the lake surface but despite that (counting the thickness of the wooden lake surface there is a full half inch between the two magnets) the force absolutely gets the boat's attention, without problem. The sailboat, like all the others, has only a small "powdered metal" bar magnet in it (1 inch long).
Hence its now obvious why I did the "experiments I reported the other day, testing every loco I had for which would run on best on Superstreets track. The BEEP won the tests and is now drafted for this service.
Advantages of this approach are:
- I can build routes that cross over themselves, snake around, etc.
- I can vary speed and direction alot
- Its very quite
- Its cheaper than pulleys, belts, and AC motors (they ran $350). The sailboat in the video is using one $60 BEEP and about $60 worth of O-27 and SS D21 track. that's it.
In the next week I will stretch the present loop to the full max length of the lake and put a second, narrower figure 8 loop inside it, so I can have two boats moving at once. On the outside loop, I plan to try mounting three magnets one at each end of the BEEP and one in the middle on the side, and have it pull three of the tiny Sunfish as in the video - a regatta race. On the inside loop, the ski boat with skier.
I see no reason why this won't work on anyone else's layout, it is so simple and workable. Just try to make the lake wide enough that you can use D21 SS curves (or even better O-27) - BEEPS will run on D16 mean the lake could be only 18 inches wide, but they don't like it nearly as much.
