One wheel drive

I'm making a 4-wheeled trolley to move a welder slowly along steel tracks. A geared electric motor will drive it very slowly, say 5mm per second or fa ster as necessary. I intend driving just one wheel, as it's rather complica ted otherwise (dual track width, and maybe variable track width). So is this going to work or will there be too much friction or will the tro lley jam? The trolley will be about 1200mm square and made of steel angle, and will have to carry the weight of the welding tip and wire feeder and ga s. The power supply and gas bottle will be on a separate vehicle.

Reply to
Matty F
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. A geared electric motor will drive it very slowly, say 5mm per second or faster as necessary. I intend driving just one wheel, as it's rather compli cated otherwise (dual track width, and maybe variable track width).

rolley jam? The trolley will be about 1200mm square and made of steel angle , and will have to carry the weight of the welding tip and wire feeder and gas. The power supply and gas bottle will be on a separate vehicle.

1 wheel drive has been used on many road cars, especially microcars. It wor ks fine when engine power is low. 2 wheel drive is only really needed when you've got a fair bit of acceleration and moderately hard cornering - neith er of which it sounds like you're planning :)

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Would a little flange lubrication upset the other users?

I don't know what your wheel profile is, but with your arrangement conicity isn't going to help anyway.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

. A geared electric motor will drive it very slowly, say 5mm per second or faster as necessary. I intend driving just one wheel, as it's rather compli cated otherwise (dual track width, and maybe variable track width).

rolley jam? The trolley will be about 1200mm square and made of steel angle , and will have to carry the weight of the welding tip and wire feeder and gas. The power supply and gas bottle will be on a separate vehicle.

Are you proposing an idler-wheel drive, where the electric motor output dri ves a small wheel in friction contact with one of the larger trolley wheels ?

(like an old French VéloSoleX)

If only one road-wheel on the trolley is driven, but the axle-spacing somew hat exceeds it's wheel-spacing, intuitively it feels ok.

Alternatively, could the friction drive be directly applied to the track (o n one side) - midway between the axles?

Or could the drive be a pinch-roller onto a single track?

(presumably pinching the railhead only, to avoid the fishplates).

Reply to
dom

Sounds a bit dodgy to me, grease on the track could bugger it up!

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

I expect it will be OK provided that the track is level enough.

You are obviously stuffed if the one driven wheel is not touching the deck. (which may happen if the bogey is nice and rigid)

Plenty of supermarket trolleys are riding on three out of four wheels.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Interesting thought... The drive would actually be more reliable if the trolley only has 3 wheels as there would no chance of a slight irregularity lifting the drive wheel off the rail.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

In article , snipped-for-privacy@gglz.com writes

That would certainly solve the problem that another has suggested of the driven wheel spinning if it loses contact on a slightly uneven track.

The friction wheel perhaps spring loaded onto the track when driving to take up any movement and enhance friction.

Don't forget the brake :-!

Reply to
fred

You could have rail wheels for guidance and rubber tyres for traction, for example:

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The tyres there are thicker than the track gauge as they're used for road traction as well. So just add a full-width axle with tyres in as many positions as gauges you want to drive on.

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

Make it easier to adjust for different track gauges too.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

For the suggested speed, it ought to be possible to use a worm drive, which would act as a brake whenever the motor was not running.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

ks. A geared electric motor will drive it very slowly, say 5mm per second o r faster as necessary. I intend driving just one wheel, as it's rather comp licated otherwise (dual track width, and maybe variable track width).

trolley jam? The trolley will be about 1200mm square and made of steel ang le, and will have to carry the weight of the welding tip and wire feeder an d gas. The power supply and gas bottle will be on a separate vehicle.

rives a small wheel in friction contact with one of the larger trolley whee ls?

ewhat exceeds it's wheel-spacing, intuitively it feels ok.

(on one side) - midway between the axles?

I've already made one wheel and attached it to the motor. I was going to ha ve four wheels but maybe three would be better, and quicker to make. It wou ld be lighter too, for easy removal when something large comes along the tr ack!

Reply to
Matty F

Many operators use flange or rail greasing to ease the passage of wheels on curves.

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Reply to
Matty F

Indeed they do - on check rails and running rails:

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Reply to
polygonum

Didn't there used to be three wheel maintenance vehicles - two wheels one side and the other about the middle on the other side, with drive on the two wheel side?

SteveW

Reply to
SteveW

If you do suffer from jamming due to yaw, making the trolley longer will solve the problem.

SteveW

Reply to
SteveW

At least two here:

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Something is niggling away in my mind - were they three-wheeled to make it easy to lift the third wheel up when they needed to get off the line? That is, the weight was mostly on the two-wheel side.

Reply to
polygonum

Excellent, I shall definitely have three wheels.

There's quite a lot of track. Here's the extent of the problem!

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Reply to
Matty F

So, just over a mile of route, what's that, five miles of rail?

Just out of interest, what's the problem you're trying to solve? Are you trying to build up the rail profile or get a better contact on track that's not used regularly?

It looks like an interesting museum, by the way. It'd definitely be on my list if I were in the area.

Reply to
John Williamson

There's about 2 km of dual gauge line, i.e. 6 km of rail, plus half a dozen places with dual track, so maybe 8km of rail. The check rails on the curve s and points get worn and need to be built up by welding, which is a really boring job when done entirely by hand.

Reply to
Matty F

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