Steam gauge for live steam

[Go_West]

Just made this assembly of fittings and gauge so that a reading of the boiler pressure can be seen at all times when checking or testing an engine for steaming faults.

[96RAF]

Handy tool Gowest.

You spoke of making it smaller and neater.

 

I was looking at an article about an old aircraft that was being converted from what they called 'steam gauges' (i.e analogue clocks with pointers) to glass instruments (i.e. LCD panels) and wondered if this approach could read across in some small way to your project.

 

So my suggestion is would it be possible to fit a pressure transducer to the loco instead of the gauge and either hard wire this to an LCD indicator or even better read it remotely on your 'panel' or PC.

 

Of course I have no idea if the hardware and/or software is freely available or at reasonable cost, nor do I have the skill set to provide you with a wiring schematic.

 

Hopefully others will be allow shorlty to add more to the idea.

Rob

[96RAF]

@Gowest

Further to my last, whilst waiting for a resident forum systems engineer to show face I found this about RF telemetry if you are into Arduino...

White man's magic

[Go_West]

RAF96

the short answer is yes

I have on your request sent off for a LCD pressure gauge about 35mm x 35mm and will give it a go as for the rf link yes not a problem but would cost a little more given time might have a go at.

will let you know what happens heat is always a problem with electronics and some times the old ideas are the best As with the brass gauge there are no batteries to start with.

[96RAF]

Batteries - True GW

In a previous life, there was a bit of kit I was 'authority' for, comprised in parts of 40 year old 'Titanic style' mains breakers made by Square 'D' and I had the bright idea of replacing them with a state of the art electronic version which would read rewind torque on the motor under its control and stop at a preset tension in the cable the motor was tugging on - this to rule out human error in guessing 'how-tight-is-it'.

 

First problem was the new kit wasn't keen on being outside in all weathers so it had to have its own heated box to keep it within operating range. No good if there's a power cut. The old kit never noticed.

 

Second problem was the manufacturer could only guarantee spares support for 5 years - a dot in time on UK Ministry projects, so although it was a great idea and would do the job admirably we binned it. As far as I know the old kit is still running and spares are still available.

[Go_West]

Yes I've been there to on radars that were the bees knees but when it came to field tests not that good that's why after the last war the government keep a few 060 tank engines in a shed somewhere as you only need water and coal and you have a means of transporting goods.