Live Diesel?


P

PartsMan

New N gauge guy
Just a what if.
Has anybody built a "live" diesel electric locomotive?
I'm not much into steam so it would be the holy grail to me.
 
There have been "diesel" large scale models built, like F units and Geeps, but all the ones I've ever seen are powered by gasoline engines. While there's no technical reason you couldn't use a diesel engine, size and cost would be a big problem. Finding one that would fit in something like a 1 1/4 scale model with enough horsepower would be a challenge. The diesel would also cost somewhere between three and four times the cost of a gasoline engine. There may be one out there somewhere but the engineering and costs don't pencil out very well.
 
I saw some use diesel generators on evilbay and it just got me thinking.
With the right motor and controler.....
It wouldn't sound like a 2 cycle v16 anyway. Just bragging rights over the battery or gasoline guys.
 
PartsMan said:
Just a what if.
Has anybody built a "live" diesel electric locomotive?
I'm not much into steam so it would be the holy grail to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah , I have , I worked at GE loco works for 38 years before retiring this year. LOL . Seriously as stated above it would be very difficult if not impossible to scale down reasonably.
 
I can't imagine how it would be harder than machineing a live steam from scratch. People have done that. I did some more searching. There are people putting electric drives in Garden scale with alcohol engines. Why couldn't that work with a small diesel? Not a scale v16. Just some small commercially avalable diesel.

I'm going to keep this in the back of my head.
 
Find a commercially produced diesel engine small enough to fit into a large scale engine. Next, calculate the horsepower and torque. Then let me know the cost. Even with unlimited funds, it would be almost impossible to build a small diesel with enough horsepower to do anything but move the locomotive around the track. The problem is the nature of diesel combustion. The high compression ratio means a large block and thick piston walls. Building live steam is, by comparison, a snap, since you don't have much in the way of size constraints. If you come with a way to do a large scale diesel, it would be interesting to hear your solution, but I think you'll need to win the lottery first for funding. :)
 
http://www.yanmar.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=52&DEPARTMENT_ID=62
Only 16.5" tall.

I haven't found a new price yet but used generators with this type of motor, and its chinese counterpart, can be had for a few hundred dollers.

Another interesting web site.
http://www.sncfg.com/livediesel.html

I know it could be done. I was just asking if it had been. It would cost a couple thousand dollars for the drivetrain unless you found some great used deals though. That's a lot of money to me but lots of people have more than that invested in toys.
 
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We run something close to a diesel locomotive on our trucks at work. if your looking for something large enough to ride on that works in the same princapal you could look up eather rig master, Carrier or Thermal King has units that run around 7000 in cash. It consists of a Two cylinder Diesel engine with a rather large generator that we use to make electrical power to run on the truck Rig Master is the only one that has its own radiator. Would be interesting to turn one of those into a larger Live Diesel locomotive.

http://www.rigmasterpower.com/
 
You might be able to cram a Kubota 18HP diesel in a f unit! It's not much bigger than a 18HP briggs engine!
 
I remember when i was in collage we were working on this kind of work. It is some time becoming very tedious and tuff task to do but engineering is the power of world.
 
Bugger it, I would go electric with a sound and smoke unit. lot's of the 1/4 scale tank builders do this and it works for them, a 1/4 scale tank can weight anything upto half a ton.
A man built a minature ferrari 312 (20'000 hours) and built everything from scratch, including the engine
Watch This
 
There is a guy in Canby, Oregon who has a 15" gauge railroad around his farm. He took a 4-cylinder diesel engine (I think it was a BMW or something similar) and used it with a hydrolic drive. Can't imagine it would be too much different to convert hydrolics to electric generating power... and his locomotives can pull 8 fully loaded gondolas full of 1:1 scale passengers with some short grades too.
 
the F units we use on the KCN are 16"gauge we had given some serous thought on replacement engines, the Honda three cylinder diesels are close to the 4 cylinder Wisconsin That we are using now there is enough room in our scale Blomberg trucks to place traction motors in them and replace the transmission with a DC generator, then using a commercial speed control the conversion theoretically this should work price somewhere in 3to$4.000 provided you have a 16 or 15"F unit to work with! JR
 
I was going to build a loco with a single cylinder diesel form Tool World, but will likely go electric with sound as well. I think the smell and fumes of a diesel would also be a deterrent.
Here's a friends website with his equipment: http://www.swedenfreezer.com/avr/
 
This thread reminded me of a man who built a diesel electric in gauge 1 (roughly G'ish) back in the early 70's. The diesel was based on RC aircraft engines heavilly modified, but they did power a generator which drove motors attached to the axles.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0_IHBZkuDWk (about 3:45 in)
 
i havent thought about it, it could work, i have a new 6 hp horazontal yanmar diesel. weight is aprox 65 to 70 lbs. size is about as big as a 5 hp briggs. something to consider.
 
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