Building a Diesel Shay Pt 2

In Pt 1 I said something about looking for an HO Bachmann Shay on eBay.  I did look but in the end decided on an On30 Bachmann Shay.  The more I looked at the HO version the more I thought the wheels looked too small.  Nuff said.  I found a really great deal for a dismantled On30 Shay that had metal gears from Northwest Short Line.  It also had bags of spares and a wood cab kit.  Most importantly.....it ran.  As soon as I got it I dismantled the cylinders and boxed in the driveshaft to resemble a transfer case.  It looked pretty good and ran great.  I showed it to some friends and one of them said "cool idea but I really like the look of all that stuff moving around".  Hmm.  He was right.

 

I was almost ready for paint when I decided to dismantle the whole thing and make it chain drive.  That'll give it some moving parts.  I spent hours on TinkerCAD designing a chain drive.  It got complicated really quickly.  On the On30 Shay the DC motor is mounted vertically with half of it and the gear box hanging below the chassis.  This didn't leave any room for the chain drive so I had to change the motor position.  With the motor laying horizontally I had more room underneath but I lost a lot of room inside the hoods where all the other components go.  I had to completely reorganize everything and this is where a CAD program comes in really handy.  I drew up the chassis with the chain drive hanging underneath and positioned the motor above it.  I made boxes with dimensions matching speakers, the sound board, the RF receiver and the batteries.  I used transparent boxes to show me the internal dimensions of the hoods and cab.  I was able to choose the best speaker based on size and specs.  In fact, in the end I had enough room for two speakers which should give more appropriate sound for the two Caterpillar engines.  I also found batteries that would work better size-wise than my original choice.

So, once again, my project has snowballed.  I think the chain drive will work well and if not I can always go back to the cheesy little transfer case idea.  Learning to use TinkerCAD for finding room for everything was a big deal and if I ever go down this rabbit hole again I'll be sure to use it to help make my choices for components.  As for now I'm  waiting for parts to be delivered.  More later.