I finished upgrading all the weaver cars with LED lighting and took them for a little spin. Since the Weaver locomotive hasn't had it's upgrade yet, the MTH Crusader locomotive that I upgraded to TMCC is standing in for motive power. Next stop is to work on interiors for these cars.
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John:
Very nice. Can't wait to see how the interiors come out.
Pat
Nice. What is giving green color?
@irish rifle posted:Very nice. Can't wait to see how the interiors come out.
Me too, I have to find some reference to what the interiors actually looked like so I can figure out what I'm going to do.
@Wvm posted:Nice. What is giving green color?
That's the color of the tinted windows, apparently that's actually prototypical for the Crusader.
Very nice John!
Very nice, my friend!
Peter
Thanks guys, I've wanted the scale set of these for a while, so I was glad to get them.
LOOKIN Good FEELING Good JOHN!!!!👍👍
Great Job John really came out beautifully especially love the green tint of the windows really offset the look!
Alan
!!!!!!
One pleasant surprise, the 21" cars didn't hang over my curves nearly as much as I expected. I think some 21" cars have different truck position and tend to swing out more on curves.
Looking good, John! I bet they'll look even better with interiors and with the Weaver loco pulling them. What type of upgrade are you going to do?
Believe at least 1 of the observation cars is at the PA Railroad Museum so you can see the interior for yourself, which should knock out 2 of the cars...
Strasburg has one of the observations cars. I don't know if it is accessible for pictures.
Jan
@BlueComet400 posted:Looking good, John! I bet they'll look even better with interiors and with the Weaver loco pulling them. What type of upgrade are you going to do?
John,
Yep, finding the documentation on exactly the layout of the cars would be really useful. I'm thinking of putting down a Styrene floor and then having the seats and tables 3D printed and just glue them into the correct positions on the floor. I can't imagine finding a correct interior for these any other way.
I'm flipping a coin on the upgrade, I could do either PS/3 or TMCC. With the TMCC I get a few more features, ground lights, Rule-17 headlight, automatic cab light, etc. The current PS/3 upgrade doesn't offer me those options. Those options were on display with the MTH RK Crusader locomotive in the video. On the flip side, I think the MTH Crusader sound file has some station stops, though the PS/2 one seems to only have one in the file.
John
GRJ: Nice job. I like the green tint as well. I have a Weaver 21" set of PRR Fleet of Modernism cars that I have always wanted to install interiors. Weaver would not sell them to me seperately. I have had this set for at least 15 years and have not been able to find interiors for the Weaver cars. I was thinking I could install premier interiors but those are hard to find as well. Anxious to see what you will do. Are you thinking like me or are you going to do individual seating and build your interiors piece by piece?
@Jan posted:Strasburg has one of the observations cars. I don't know if it is accessible for pictures.
I saw that, but I wonder if it's possible to get inside, I don't believe that's one that's generally open to the public.
@jini5 posted:GRJ: Nice job. I like the green tint as well. I have a Weaver 21" set of PRR Fleet of Modernism cars that I have always wanted to install interiors. Weaver would not sell them to me seperately. I have had this set for at least 15 years and have not been able to find interiors for the Weaver cars. I was thinking I could install premier interiors but those are hard to find as well. Anxious to see what you will do. Are you thinking like me or are you going to do individual seating and build your interiors piece by piece?
Yep, it seems the only way practical is to make the floor and then 3D print all the seating and tables for the interior. I have looked around to see if there are other options, but trying to get other interiors to line up with the windows, or in the case of the two observation cars, be anything close to the prototype, seems to be the impossible dream.
FWIW, I found this link John, is it the same train? Perhaps not.
Full article: Streamliner memories
Great Ted, that's it! A lot of good pictures, should be able to get a start with those. 
I knew I'd seen something like this before...
@TedW posted:FWIW, I found this link John, is it the same train? Perhaps not.
Full article: Streamliner memories
Not quite the same charm as riding the Amtrak NE Regional......
@RSJB18 posted:Not quite the same charm as riding the Amtrak NE Regional......
Yeah, everybody in coat n tie and heels!! 
Who they trying to kid, putting on airs like that… 
@RSJB18 posted:Not quite the same charm as riding the Amtrak NE Regional......
Probably more reliable. 
I noticed the light on the running gear of the engine. How many leds and where did you attach them?
@Oldcarsrule posted:I noticed the light on the running gear of the engine. How many leds and where did you attach them?
I believe there are three a side, those are surface mount LED's, and I have a tiny circuit board made for doing ground lights. They automatically turn out at about 10 scale MPH.
Here's some before I cut them apart. I get the bare boards from OSHPark and solder the LED chips on them, then cut them apart. I glue them down and then solder the wired between them. My Chuff-Generator has an output to automatically control them based on the speed.
Lights look great. That crusader is a really nice looking train.
They look great. I also enjoyed seeing the Crusader show off at the Spring Thaw show.
looks great john.did you clip them from walt? I had the pleasure of meeting in allentown.what afine set up you guys have.i must go cast the video to my tv.you are a genius
@gunrunnerjohn, do you have a gerber file for that tiny ground light pc board? Is there a resister involved? Thx in advance for the help.
@Tuscan Jim posted:They look great. I also enjoyed seeing the Crusader show off at the Spring Thaw show.
That was my "mini" Crusader, the Railking version that I upgraded to TMCC at Spring Thaw. Actually, the locomotive that's pulling the Weaver cars is the RailKing as I don't have the Weaver locomotive upgraded to command yet.
@kranky posted:looks great john.did you clip them from walt? I had the pleasure of meeting in allentown.what afine set up you guys have.i must go cast the video to my tv.you are a genius
Nope, I bought them here on the forum several weeks ago. First ones I've seen for quite a while. Walt has the Weaver locomotive, but he's still looking for the passenger cars to go with it.
@TedW posted:@gunrunnerjohn, do you have a gerber file for that tiny ground light pc board? Is there a resister involved? Thx in advance for the help.
Here you go, I get these at OSHPark, $2.30 for three boards. That translates to about 13 cents each for the tiny PCB for the ground lights. I buy the 3528 SMT LED's to populate these. Since I control these from the Chuff-Generator ground line output, I assume 12 volts and size my resistor to suit. Typically for command operation, I use three of these in series and add a 220 ohm resistor in series with that string.
Hey John, the Weaver engine, will it have a Cruise Commander in it? I know that some of Weaver's engines have the capability of having Cruise installed because of what motor is in there, I think they're Korea made motors? I believe the Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson has one of those motors too. Is there an easy way to figure out if it is like when they were manufactured or something about how they run conventionally?
Well, the locomotive will certainly have cruise, that's mandatory with my upgrades. I don't worry about how it runs conventionally to be honest as it'll never run that way. As long as the mechanics are solid, I just gut the electronics and go to work. If the motor is a problem, I have a few Pittman motors in my part boxes...
I haven't totally decided on TMCC or DCS as the upgrade, but I'm leaning to TMCC since I get extra running features like Rule-17 headlight, automatic cab light control, and automatic ground lights. Those features are on display with my "stand-in" RailKing Crusader locomotive that is pulling the Weaver cars in the video.
Yeah, I still have to watch the video. Been too busy to get my eyes on a bunch of stuff on the forum as of late. As far as the motors are concerned though, if running conventionally, if it is anything like a DC or those fast motors, it would take off wouldn't it? If it is like the Pittman's, wouldn't it be a bit slower or would it also take off? That is really what I'm trying to understand.
With a conventional layout, you obviously vary the track voltage to vary the torque and RPM of the motors, but that's a fairly crude control. With any DC can motor if you give it full voltage will take off, there is no modulation of the torque or RPM just with the motor. The electronics provides that level of control. for command installations as the track voltage is a constant.
Yeah, I do know that if you give it full juice, it rockets off. I also know with DC can motors, a little voltage, they may not move. Apply a little more, and they lurch forward. Some motors I think though, give a little, they move a bit but not like the can's that tend to fly as it were with the same voltage.
Should have been a "right?" on the end of that, sorry.
@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:Yeah, I do know that if you give it full juice, it rockets off. I also know with DC can motors, a little voltage, they may not move. Apply a little more, and they lurch forward. Some motors I think though, give a little, they move a bit but not like the can's that tend to fly as it were with the same voltage.
Actually, it's the Pulmore open frame motors that don't have smooth starts as a rule. Many can motored units will actually start out very smoothly without any electronic speed control.
Any locomotive without any speed control will tend not to start as smoothly as one with speed control. It's all about overcoming the initial friction in the drivetrain, not to mention the inertia of the engine & cars. Without speed control, once the train just starts to move, the drivetrain friction is overcome and typically it takes less torque to keep it moving, so there is a bit of a "jump". OTOH, with speed control, the driver board just keeps pouring on the coals until it starts moving and then immediately cuts back on the power to maintain the set speed. Most of my cruise enabled locomotives will start up very smoothly at very low speeds and just creep away. Much harder to have that smooth a start with a non-cruise enabled locomotive.
@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:
Dave- FWIW- I'm installing an ERR AC Commander in a dual pullmor engine. Here's the first test run with the default speed settings (32 steps) on the board. Not bad IMHO.
I agree that the DC motors are much smoother but this isn't bad considering how pullmor's react to track voltage.
Bob
@RSJB18 posted:Dave- FWIW- I'm installing an ERR AC Commander in a dual pullmor engine. Here's the first test run with the default speed settings (32 steps) on the board. Not bad IMHO.
Bob, the default as shipped for the ERR products is 100 speed steps. Unless you used TMCC control mode in a CAB2, you were getting 100 speed steps.
Here's my Phantom with dual Pulmore motors and the AC Commander doing a low speed pass. I can actually get slower speeds, but this was nice and consistent.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Bob, the default as shipped for the ERR products is 100 speed steps. Unless you used TMCC control mode in a CAB2, you were getting 100 speed steps.
Still new at this stuff John. I assumed the default was the low setting.
Thanks
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