Plasticville Kit Bashed Coaling Tower Kits

That's some fine looking Plasticville you've made there.

I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to hear more about this operating coal mine.

J White

Great job. Doesn't look like Plasticville but like a fine model..

Okay some details on construction and operation of the coal mine loading hopper.

This is picture (above) of the solenoid with slide gate closed. A rubber band is used to keep solenoid plunger engaged in the lock position on the gate handle  There is a wire protruding through the funnel and attached to the solenoid to break up coal bridges in the funnel.

The ceiling of the coal loading station and slide gate, tracks are made of 1/4 inch plywood.  The slide gate is lubricated with paraffin.

This above shows the rubber band that will open the slide gate in tension.  The center V shown on the edge of the card board coal funnel is hooked on a screw hook in the end of the slide gate.  By the way, the lights you see in pictures are in slots cut in the ceiling of the coal dump section and light both the track below the dump section and inside the building to show lights in the windows up stairs.

This above is a view of the opened slide gate arm and solenoid.  The slide gate are has a tapper to allow the solenoid arm to slide down the arm as it opens.  You can see the gate is open.  The black square full wave bridge rectifier wired to the solenoid converts the 12vac to 12vdc to trigger the solenoid.

This view above is of the end of the slide gate with the hook eye and rubber band that opened the gate.

Operation

This is a job requiring the help of a human operator!  The roof must be removed and the gate closed by hand.  Coal is added by pouring it into the funnel shaped hopper.  The roof is then installed.  An open top hopper rail car is spotted under the coal mine loading section of the coal mine.  The coal is dumped by pressing the coal dump button on the control panel.  This triggers the solenoid with 12vdc.  It dumps coal most the time. 

It is best to use a small less than 1/2 car of plastic coal.  As with any operation of plastic coal spillage will happen.  I have not figured out how to recharge the hopper and rearm the slide gate automatically. 

Hope this helps and this was a fun project I enjoyed figuring out how to make it work and build it.

Charlie

I see a more recent thread on building topper and kitbashing Plasticvilles Coaling tower.  My old thread shows two finished projects and the details of the dumping coal mine.

Charlie