The age of steam is long gone, but there are few railfans who don’t have a soft spot for the old rolling kettles. So you’d best believe when [AeroKoi] talks about 3D printed train whistles, that’s steam whistles. Generally speaking, Diesels have horns.
You would not expect printed plastic to hold up to live steam– but that’s why [AeroKoi] uses compressed air. Besides, it’s a lot easier to both justify and maintain an air compressor than a boiler in the shop. At least some hobbyists say it doesn’t make a huge difference with brass whistles, so it should be good enough for plastic. What’s interesting is that even with 120 PSI blasting through them, these multi-part prints held together and sounded amazing.
[AeroKoi] does demonstrate there was a learning curve to climb before he had a good whistle design, and shows you what features worked best. He shared two successes on Thingiverse: A 6-Chime whistle from the Sante Fe Railroad, and a Northern Pacific 5-chime whistle, both 4″ in diameter and printed in vertically sectioned parts. The Northern Pacific is not to be confused with the totally different Union Pacific Railroad, whose famous “Big Boy” also had a whistle feature in the video — though evidently he’s not as happy with it, since he did not share the design.
Those are all North American designs, but there’s no reason this technique wouldn’t work to replicate a more European sound; one of his early experiments was kind of going in that direction already. Of course if you want a perfect replica, the old ways are the best ways: cast brass and live steam. We’ve had a few articles about train whistles in the past, one of which was a doorbell.
I never looked into train whistles before, but this video start me thinking how to route a compressor line to my doorbel. Marvelous design and entertaining video, kudos.
No need to route a compressor line, modify a bicycle pump with a pulley and weight system so when it’s mounted upside down a visitor can pull the pump down and the weight pulls it back up. Two whistles can be incorporated at air exit and air entry for a two tone call.
I think you vastly underestimate how much air one of these whistles actually needs.
You’ll probably notice that a house’s doorbell doesn’t need to be as loud as a train whistle.
Train whistles are so cool!
When I watch YouTube late at night I sometimes worry that I’ve got the volume is up too high and the sound will carry through the walls keep my neighbours awake and how any conversation with them about it will go. “What were you doing last night?”, “Watching a video about train whistles.”
Would it overpower the 600dB Horn from ebay?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365709933149
I refuse to believe that there is such a thing as a 600dB Horn. Certainly not from Ebay.
If there were such a device, using it would likely register high on the Richter scale.
Yeah, the max possible is probably about 194dB in air because at that point you’re running into compressability problems because you’re accelerating the air to about supersonic levels and forming shock waves and you can’t do more.
For what it’s worth, there are weird people who do decibel drag racing, which is how loud a sound can you make inside a car, and the record is in the 175dB area.
Youtube a day!
I regret complaining about the 5 trillion raspberry pi posts yall used to make lmao