Phil Diefenderfer
My father purchased an Lionel coal dump car off of eBay and the car was broken on arrival. Rather than buying another or returning it to the seller he decided to ask me to fix the car with my 3D-Printer. The coal car is spring loaded and dumps the contents of the car when triggered by the engineer. A plunger holds the hopper in place and is pulled out of the way by an electromagnet in the track. Once the plunger is pulled down, the spring pushes the hopper up which pivots on a hinge. One of the pins that for that hinge was broken off. This caused the hopper to be pushed off at a weird angle when released. I apologize for not having a before picture of the broken coal car.
Using my trusty calipers I replicated the broken piece using Fusion360. After a couple iterations to get the pin sizes, hole sizes, and distance from the plunger right I had it working. The old piece is on the right and the new one is on the left.
See the videos linked showing the dumper working and the Fusion360 timeline showing the design process!
akashupase
TAIBHSE DESIGNS
Jeremy g.
Eric Moyer