Speedometer Cars

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I ordered a speedometer car from Train Electronics.

The first product was a scale speedometer, with trackside sensors.

For the wireless version, the speed sensor and transmitting electronics goes into a piece of rolling stock, and the trackside electronics picks up the signal and displays it.

I've added an optional sensor for track voltage, since I run DCC, I thought it might be nice to determine if I can see voltage drops, which might indicate poor power delivers, bad joiners, etc.

Here's a picture of the wireless receiver and display:

The car itself

Normally it was put in a Hartland car. I bought a USAT 70 ton hopper, and figured the coal load would be easy to pop off to get at the electronics, but they would be hidden most of the time.

Since I wanted to sense the voltage, I needed good pickups. I used the LGB BB wheels. Well, they raise the body too much. So to body mount Kadee 830's I put 2 shims down the length of the draft gear box. It worked out to a .125" and a .060" together to get the height correct. You can just see part of the draft gearbox.

I mounted the pickup wheels inboard at each end so the wires would be hidden. Dave makes the encoder disc, and mounts it and the sensor:

The electronics are added inside, you can see the battery and the transmitter:

All I can say is that it works even better than I thought, and Dave is great to work with. Here's a link to his site with more pictures: Click Here to see the pictures

Setting:

The same unit can be configured to operate both as a wireless and a wired unit.  To switch between modes hold the MENU button for several seconds when the main copyright screen is displayed.  WIRELESS   NOW=0 or NOW =1 will be displayed.  Continue holding the MENU button until the unit goes to the next screen.  If it was set for wireless (NOW=1) it will switch to wired mode (NOW=0) and visa versa.

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