XavierJ123 said:
Maybe you could point me in the right direction for a SIMPLE motor to actuate a pump jack for my HO railroad.
Hi Xavier. What you want is something with less work to get the RPM down than what I went through. What I would say to you is, get yourself an old rotisserie motor off of a barbecue. You can find some that work on 110 volt and some that are battery operated. You can run a
battery operated one off of a transformer.
You should have a close look at how the truck is made to move with a waffle wheel. This would be best as it creates a straight pull/push type of movement.
The waffle wheel would allow you to choose the amount of lifts per one rotation of the motor and this would solve any problem of getting a motor that moved too slow, because you could have 2 or 3 lifts per rotation.
Use springs and not elastic bands, they last way longer and are more reliable. Keep the spring as close to the main power wheel as possible, this reduces friction on you pump jack model and on the whole mechanism.
Only use as much spring tension as necessary to do the job. Use soft pulling springs as they have less
tension. If you can make gravity do the work of the spring, that's even better.
Remember to keep all axle tolerances as close as possible so you machine runs quiet. If one of the bearings is sloppy, it will talk and brake down sooner. It would be like building it wore out.
Anything else you want to know, just ask.
TrainClown