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…............................................ .--- Track Elevator Upgrade ---

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A long read......................... Had a friend from Missouri visit recently and when he saw the track elevator (built sometime back HERE ) he said that he had a couple tread mills that he took apart for parts and if I wanted them he would send them to me. I didn't really see a way to use them that would be an upgrade but it got me to thinking about alternatives to what I've been using.

Been using two 5 gallon buckets with one connected to a rope that goes over a couple pulleys and pull the track elevator up 10.25 inches when the buckets weight overcomes the weight of the track elevator. It has been working fine and is a simple application where I pump water (cheap little pumps) from a stationary bucket to the bucket that is attached to the elevator and pulls it up when near full.

He suggested I go to something that pull directly on the elevator with limit switches and this was considered when I started the project. The main problem I see with that is things need to be very accurate so that the tracks line up pretty much perfectly going up and down. With the approach I've taken I can align the elevator in the up and down position with low tech simple stops and angled pieces of wood that guide the elevator into position in the up and down positions.

In the down position the elevator ends up sitting on stops and slides into position via simple angled pieces of lumber. In the up position it hits and stops on to horizontal braces and again is nudged into positron with angled pieces of lumber on the elevator's surface.

All very low tech and with minimal forces to deal with since the bucket only weighs about 15-20 lb more than the elevator that is all the force there is on the horizontal braces that stop the elevator from going any higher. Likewise in the down position there is just the weight of the elevator on the stops in the down position.

So if you are still with me what have I changed? I bought a $65 110v winch and now use it to lift and lower the bucket that weighs a little more than the elevator and can put weight in it other than the water that has been used. Since it only lifts the bucket and not the elevator all the other forces remain the same. The travel of the winch cable is not critical. If it tries to lower the bucket too much when the bucket lifts the elevator and stops going down the winch cable goes a little slack. If it raises the bucket a little too far then the rope from the bucket to the elevator goes a little slack.

So there is no need for limit switches and such. The hand control that came with the winch is all that is needed and the winch is stopped when one sees the elevator at the top or bottom and the cable or rope goes a little slack if you overshoot that a bit and that is actually what one does.

Now for the big plus. Before it took the elevator about 50-60 seconds to ascend or descent. Not bad but now it takes 5 seconds and works great. The elevator fits in a space that originally was going to be a helix between levels. It was going to cost about as much to build and take far longer for the train to move between levels and wouldn't of been quite as versatile as some options I have with track layout there is with the elevator.

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For a video of the new improved track elevator click the image above or ( HERE ).

Now maybe on to track laying...................

A link to this whole build ( HERE ).

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