Mini Thunderbolt Parts - Not Getting Built Any Time Soon

[TboltTX1]

An air matress inflator would work great as a blower because it puts out quite a bit of air, the problem is it is very noisy and may drown out the siren. Also it runs on 110VAC and could not be easily put on the same circut as the rotator. Another option would be a small scale roots blower but I have heard that they are exspensive.

[Train Fan]

Solenoids!!

Don't think I haven't thought about it. I always dismissed it out of hand as being to small of a scale to do it. I just went and eyeballed the horn neck and It's not as small as I thought it would be.
I guess one side solenoid box would be roughly .58 tall by .75 long by .4ish deep. That's guesstimating though. It might actually be bigger than that. Maybe I could find something that would go in there. Maybe a model railroad switch solenoid??????? Hmmmm....
Of course the rotator box will have to be taller and another set of brushes added but that wouldn't that huge of a change. Let me scale the solenoid boxes on one of my 1003s and see what the final scaled size would end up being. And I think I have some model railroad switches around here somewhere from my train hobby daze.

Here's a measurement of a Atlas switch solenoid core I have laying around.
There is two sets of windings, so you might get two for one with a bit of careful cutting:

The total length of the coils is 1.247'.
Diameter is .250'
Measurement from the end to the middle spacer is .625'
ID of the coil is .129'
Diameter of the plunger is .121'

If you need any more measurements or pics, shoot me a PM.

[holler]

Look up Burden Sales Surplus Center on Google. They have lots of small DC blowers at very good prices. I have one of their catalogs, and they have a lot of good stuff.

[CDV777-1]

I remember how I came up with using the smog pump now.
I thought about the one on my truck and how it was similar to a vacuum motor and it runs on 12v. I pulled it off one day and rigged it to the mini-thunderbolt and it worked pretty good. I found a really junky camaro electric smog pump on ebay for $15 or so so I bid on it. I have looked at the types of blowers on the Burden Sales site and those don't seem to push enough air. It has to be a vacuum blower type of blower. It can't be a fan. It'll be a while before anything gets done on making it a 1003.
I have to finish with the original parts first.

As far as how loud it is. mixerbd699 has heard it in person and he said that it was as loud as a full size thunderbolt with a towel half way in the horn. No blower of course.

[bwillcox]

Eric brought the Minibolt to a meeting of my radio club as part of a Civil Defense presentation, and it had no problem whatsoever holding its own in the large EOC room. The pitch of it is dead on the full size version.

At the time he was running it off a battery pack with a charger on it, if memory serves.

Sign me up as definitely interested in a Minibolt parts run Eric.

-b-

[weasel2htm]

Eric brought the Minibolt to a meeting of my radio club as part of a Civil Defense presentation, and it had no problem whatsoever holding its own in the large EOC room. The pitch of it is dead on the full size version.

At the time he was running it off a battery pack with a charger on it, if memory serves.

Sign me up as definitely interested in a Minibolt parts run Eric.

-b-

"Minibolt" I like that

[Jim Z]

yeah, I would pay for one of these

[CD1003]

Heck Yeah!! How much? I would prefer a Thunderbolt 1003 but a Thunderbolt 1000 is fine too. A couple of the guys here on the board saw my model of a Thunderbolt 1003. I have finally given up on making sound to it. If I got one of your manufactured model Thunderbolts I would definitely put it on display and run it for people. By the way I have seen in the past your model Thunderbolt before in action and I cannot tell you what a good job you did on it. I would not even come close to making any of my models that good!!! Nice work!

[Trey]

I'm more than quite interested...but I can't shell out gold coins. Blue collar salary only.

[Train Fan]

I'm more than quite interested...but I can't shell out gold coins. Blue collar salary only.

Same. I'm running on $100 a year from birthdays, so cash is not something I have a lot of at the age of 15.