Oh dear. That will teach me to interfere with things I don't understand. Yesterday evening I was experimenting with gradients to find out what would be suitable to use on Hitsu. These T gauge trains have some kind of magnetic traction so they can climb good steep grades.
I didn't want anything too steep, just to be noticeable. So I was playing around. Setting up slopes and running the trains round and around, up and down the various grades I was making. I think at times the running was actually improved by negotiating these slopes. One time I hit the reverse switch (much as I had done countless times before) and the train didn't move no nudging or anything would budge it. I thought perhaps the gears had jumped out of alignment or something so I fiddled with the wheels a bit and it worked again no problems. Until I hit the reverse button again and the same thing happened. So I fiddled with the wheels again. But this time there was no improvement. So I thought I'd take the body off and see If something had happened inside. Well to cut a long story short I've lost one coupler hook and destroyed a spring and the car still doesn't work. But at least I still have a 2 car set that I can run...
I've ordered another set from Japan ($45 a set is nothing, for some people that's 2 weeks worth of large low fat double decaf vanilla latte's). I'll try to get this car to run and also convert the body to a KIHa 54 Diesel Multiple Unit. That is something I was going to do anyway so I've not really lost anything. Things have been pushed forward a bit thats all.
Anyway on a brighter note this episode allowed me to see inside the body of the tiny T cars and what a sight it is. Below is the chassis. You can see the tiny 4mm diameter pager motor in the middle there complete with miniscule spur gear on the drive shaft. The springs above the bogies take the current from the wheels to a busbar in the roof of the car to take the current to the motor.
Here's the tiny gear box the housing fits snugly inside the body of the car.
Here you can see how the gear box fits inside the body and you can also see the busbars inside the roof of the car. It's amazing it really is.
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