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1:76 4mm Atkinson Borderer RC conversion.


Giles
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The underside before it was touched...... as I only have a couple of my precious 8mm gearmotors left, I wanted to use a 6mm type and see how that performs. I opened out the bore of the bevel gear in the lathe, and carefully glued it to the shaft using Devcon.

 

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2020-03-25_04-25-30 by giles favell, on Flickr

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100rpm 6mm gearmotor by giles favell, on Flickr

After diff and other details were chopped out for bevel gear and gearmotor

49698104432_2d371a262d_b.jpg

2020-03-25_04-24-40 by giles favell, on Flickr

 

Edited by Giles
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With the diff gone, there was nothing to retain the new rear axle, so slits were cut into the chassis, and 1mm wire staples made and glued in to solve.

 

49697792041_40ab08aa19_b.jpg

 

Underside  showing new 1.5mm axle in place with bevel gear, and laser-cut front axle. Servo is in position, with scratchbuilt horn from tube and sheet

49696905143_cb4384b4a0_b.jpg

4mm  Atkinson by giles favell

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The servo only just fits in the cab - leaning back at an angle of 3-5 degrees, and requires a longer shafted horn than the supplied nylon ones, and one with a shorter throw. Once I got my head round this, fitting it was quite straightforward. The receiver will sit in the cab, and the battery will sit, disguised, on the front of the trailer, allowing two thirds of the trailer still to be used.

On off switch and charging socket also go under the trailer.

 

49697739012_4cfbe5af31_b.jpg

4mm Atkinson RC by giles favell

Edited by Giles
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Almost finished  - still got the brake lights to sort out. I had a couple of problems:

1.  With the foreshortened servo horn (as shown), The steering lock was insufficient, so I replaced the horn with a longer one, dropping a fraction below the axle  and with a longer throw.  That sorted that, and I'm now very happy with the steering.

2. I used fine multi strand decoder wire to connect the trailer and unit (in place of the air hoses) this was not sufficiently flexible, and kept interfering with the articulation. I eventually replaced these wires with very fine wires from pre-wired LEDs. Sorted.

 

Photos tomorrow.

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Excepting a crate or tarpaulin to cover the battery, it is completed and working.

I've replaced the rather heavy door mirrors with N/S wire assemblies, and drilled out the cast and silver-painted headlights,  and filled the 'reflector dimple' with 5 minute epoxy to form lenses (I've also done the same job to the two TKs whilst i was at it).

It manoeuvres about as well as the real thing with such a short trailer, and on the whole, I'm happy with it. I'm very surprised by the power of these little 6mm gearmotors, even though they're not quite as good as the K20s.

I've done done very basic weathering simply to get the gloss off, but it would benefit from more attention. I'm aware that Stobarts like to keep their motors clean though!

 

 49713311207_9784295aac_b.jpg

2020-03-29_05-56-43 by giles favell, on Flickr

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2020-03-29_05-57-18 by giles favell, on Flickr

Edited by Giles
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  • 3 years later...

I've now rebuilt this trailer so there's a battery underneath now (220mAh) which improves its usefulness, but I also bought a second one off ebay and built a new trailer from nickel silver and using the wheels. This takes a 300mAh battery and is a scale 33ft trailer which was for years the normal maximum length for artic trailers. The unit is fully converted, just needing jumper wires.

 

20231022_173924

 

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  • 1 month later...

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