TMCC controlled milk car?

Jeff-

What about the flashing strobe light option? For diesels with a strobe light the TMCC feature output would send pulses of energy to make the strobe light flash. Maybe it would be just enough to trigger the unloading mechanism?

-John

Your TMCC upgrade kit was meant for lights and electrocouplers drawing perhaps 2A for a very short duration of a fraction of a second. Milk cars draw far more current. That's why the Mini Commander HC, and the discontinued milk car kits which used to be made by ERR put out 6A to 8A. I think you would likely fry your GP9 upgrade kit trying to power a milk car directly.

However, you could probably use your coupler function to trigger a small relay that activates the milk car. If the power from your electrocoupler output is rectified to DC, and you use a capacitor, you may be able to "hold" the relay for the second or two required to eject a milk can.

But after all this, you'd still be firing out milk cans with 18V AC. Maybe someone else has the knowledge to solve that problem.

You have a good ideal let me help you make it better.

The problem is- you are using the old simple coil and plunger style of milk car motor mechanism. It's difficult to the get the voltage and timing right to not throw out the milk cans or not activate enough.

Since we are coming up on the Lionel parts sale, get yourself the NEW style electronic board that drives a hobby servo motor to actuate the milk mechanism.

https://ogrforum.com/...-new-servo-mechanism

@Professor Chaos posted:

Here are some photos of the mechanism.  Nearly all of the old milk car hardware is retained.  The servo control board is mounted in the bracket that used to hold the coil; there's a 555 in there:

The moving parts of the mechanism are the same; the servo is attached to a new standoff mounted on the old arm:

New plastic bracket holds the servo in place:

Overview of the mechanism:

Again, you buy this $15 board- half off, $7.50 (plus shipping  and tax)

https://www.lionelsupport.com/PCB-MILK-CAR

Then, rather than paying the Lionel price $19, even half off, we can do better (https://www.lionelsupport.com/MOTOR-MILK-CAR) for a standard radio control 9G servo motor, you buy one elsewhere like amazon

What I'm saying is, by changing out the motor mechanism to a servo driven by a PCB, (You get 2 birds stoned at once- Ricky TPB). You get a smoother mechanims that accepts a short momentary trigger input (example from an LCRX TMCC board) but also improves the overall usability and smoothness not launching the cans or requiring a specific track voltage to get it just right.

Again, that board is this simple:

You plug in an off the shelf 9G servo motor as pictured wire orientation to the plug.

The board then gets standard track power from the pickup roller and wheels/frame common.

Last, the trigger input was previously a sliding shoe style, but instead you wire that to your chosen output of the LCRX or other board.

GregR - I forgot about the current draw.

What about using the TMCC board to trigger a latching relay? One pulse from the TMCC board to activate the circuit, then another pulse to turn it off.

The car can still be powered from track voltage, or a voltage regulator can be added to lower the voltage to a more realistic "unloading speed".

-John

Yes, you might have to fabricate a servo motor mount bracket, and the custom spring actuator, and maybe a few other minor mounting point details, but again, given the pictures of the OEM Lionel conversion, you can even see the original coil bracket stamping is where they mounted the new style PCB.

Note input does need to be held long enough for complete movement out, but can be a toggle ON/OFF and not hurt anything. Example, light output might be a better choice on the LCRX.

Just a suggestion, but you could consider picking up a K-line Controller 6-21438 and some of the K-Line Unloading / Dump Cars.  I have several of them and think they are the best.  Williams, I believe, also has them, but know that the Williams and K-Line cars do not operate with the others controller (different frequency).   These cars can operate anywhere on the layout with the controller.

If you do go this route, Do Not Buy the K-Line Pennsylvania Log dump car.  I had two with the zinc pest and they just fell apart.

@Vernon Barry posted:

You have a good ideal let me help you make it better.

So let me see if I get this...

Buy a new milk car controller card from Lionel when the sale hits (in about 2 weeks).  Buy a RC Servo motor (or three) from Amazon.  Plug motor into the milk board.  Plug milk board into TMCC board for trigger. Rig the new servo motor to the slide instead of the old plunger. Poof, Bob's your uncle.

I did not know about the sale - I must thank you for that.

I did not know that they changed the design of a milk car.  I just bought 3 oldies with damaged shells for cheap because I wanted to actually move the guts over to a "more to scale" boxcar.  That's the incentive to re-jigger the insides. I will still have to figure out how to possibly get the sliding door to open with the actuator (instead of having it just bust the doors open as in old days).

I just probably want to play with the LMCC board->Milk board->Servo a bit.  I wonder about the logic on the Milk Board to control the servo.  Since I never played with Arduino projects, this'll be a whole new angle for me.

Now I wish that I had some 3D printing experience - it might make this whole thing a lot easier...

If you want to do it the simple way, I still have one Mini Commander HC in stock that was made for the milkcar upgrade.

@Homey B posted:

I hope that this is the correct forum to talk about this sort of wiring situation...

The club I belong to has a 100% FastTrack set-up.  No UCS trackage (and no tubular track at all) in the set-up.  I want to bring and run a milk car.  That's an issue, since it uses the UCS power rails to make the car do it's thing.

I don't mean tin interrupt a very good plan and an excellent thread with good comments from all, but going back to your initial post, are you aware that there's a FastTrack operating section (a non-tubular UCS equivalent for FastTrack)?  It's product no. 6-12054 and it looks like this:

Just thought that I'd bring us back to earth for a second, in case a simpler approach might have potential too.

Mike

I belong to the same club Vern does. We have no control tracks except on sidings that are hard to reach.  I wanted to run unloading milk cars at one point in the main track, but understood the issue with the old style control tracks causing issues with some expensive locomotives.

So - - - --

I bought some of the K-line remote operated milk cars and remote unloading refer cars with the required remote. Williams makes other remote unloading cars but unfortunately not milk cars. The Williams cars are on a different frequency that the K-line so require a different remote.

Lionel also bought the rights from K-line and for a short time produced "K-Line by Lionel" remote unloading Milk and Refer cars (and log dump too).

Eventually I will try to convert some of my old post war type unloading cars as Vern outlined above, but the K-Line cars (and Williams Refer) are a better way to get running quickly, although not every one for sale on eBay or Trainz actually works. I have had to return a few. I have also had one Heinz Pickle car develop zinc pest.