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00 Bagnall 'Port of Par' 0-4-0ST Bodge/Bash - Battery Power/Radio Control


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With thanks to member Phil Sutters, as of 6/8/17, G.W. Models is as follows:-

 

Address:-       11 Croshaw Close, Lancing, West Sussex, BN15 9LE.

Telephone:-    01903 767231.

Contact details are still the same - He advertises in every MRJ and attends some of the better shows.

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Contact details are still the same - He advertises in every MRJ and attends some of the better shows.

 

I tend to seek to avoid the sense of judgment that comes from opening the MRJ, and I clearly go to the wrong sort of shows!  

 

Thanks to Tiptonian for the contact details, and to you for confirming them.

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I have a new laptop, so can now view your videos, Corbs. Can you please tell us about the radio control system that you are using? I've never seen RC in anything so small and I'm amazed by it. I have an idea to fit it into a small 4w overhead electric loco.

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  • RMweb Gold

Of course! I think with your chassis building ability you'd be able to build a much better running loco than what I have.

 

I use this Deltang Tx-22 transmitter to control it. The big one is the forward/backward speed control. The top left twisty knob is the Selecta, which means you can programme up to 12 different locos. The top right one is the inertia control, which allows you to whack the speed control up to the speed you want, and the loco will gradually gather speed (and the inverse for stopping)

 

post-898-0-82843100-1543704038.png

 

The transmitter needs to be paired with a receiver on the loco. I think the one I have used is the Rx41d-x-v5-W from this site:

http://www.micronradiocontrol.co.uk/rx_dt_land_v5.html

 

Micron also sell the switches, batteries, cables and connectors.

The battery is a tiny single cell (1s) 3.7v LiPo.

 

What I would advise is getting the RC gear first, and designing the loco around it. Both 'Perseus' and my Lambtonesque 0-6-2T suffer from the fact that they were built as DC locos, and I didn't design them to have space for batteries or RC gear. With Perseus that means the battery is sharing space with the motor in the cab rather than the boiler. With the other one it means I can't use nice big battery.

 

Here's a comparison of how a 3.7v battery runs the motor. Perseus (the green one) has a standard Hornby 12v DV motor in it, while Bill (the yellow one) has a tiny can motor mounted in it. The 12v suffers from short battery life and has a lower top speed (both running at full speed when in reverse) because it is effectively working at a third of its potential.

Best to design the loco around a 3v or 6v motor rather than a 12v one.

In a larger loco this would not be so much or an issue as you could fit an 8v upconverter and a massive battery to overcome the shortened battery life, but in these tiny things it's a bit tricky.

I removed Bill's rods for these tests to overcome the binding.

 

Here's the loco accelerating with inertia turned up to 100%.

 

Here's the exact same RC rig bodged on to a Tenshodo Spud. Usually these won't run at less than Mach 1 but with RC it can crawl over insulfrog points quite nicely.

 

The only thing I haven't put on Bill is a charging plug, but I think I'm not going to bother, and just have the body easily removable (magnets or something, Nile-style) and able to quick swap the battery using the UM plug.

 

On my other models I've put charging plugs in and the wiring gets a bit messy. The most elegant one I did was this 009 Bachmann Skarloey which has the plug behind the smokebox door.

 

Hope this is useful!

 

Bonus Bill.

 

Of course, before I added handrails etc. what I should have done is make a cast of Bill so I could make a resin copy and not have to chop up another ERTL loco for Ben....

Edited by Corbs
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  • RMweb Gold

For people who want radio control without combining DCC, Deltang based systems are definitely the way to go. Combined with small motors and non worm-based transmissions (to reduce power losses) then there is great potential to go for battery power, as the power consumption is reduced.

 

For those prepared to consider metal rather than nylon gears, the following link to eBay might be of interest.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Helical-Gear-Angled-Toothed-45-Module-0-5-Steel/201139346744?hash=item2ed4d6dd38:m:mbCey0BegoveuhlU3MnTFBQ&var=500304674000

The link is for helicals, but have a look at other items in the eBay shop.

Not tried them, but these look to be quality items.

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  • RMweb Gold

Those helicals do look good, but the postage is pretty hefty. You'd need to order a big bunch to make it economical.

Aye, so it makes sense for a group of people, if interested, to combine an order, or to buy a few sets and lay them in stock for the future.

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I hope you don't mind me going slightly OT, Corbs, but this miniature RC stuff has got me thinking about building another Manning Wardle Class H. They built a crane tank, an "extensive alteration" Class H in 1876 and a "Special" in 1918, which was a crane tank on Class H frames etc. I am wondering if it will be possible to build such a small thing in 4mm scale and have the crane work. Probably not fully working but at least slewing. The traction motor taking power from the track, in the usual way, and the crane motor(s) worked by RC, perhaps?

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  • RMweb Gold

Yes I think that would be easy to do. You could do it on a budget using the same RC gear I used for my initial test with a Bachmann 'Skarloey'.

 

I bought one of these coke can RC cars:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Coke-Can-Mini-Speed-RC-Radio-Remote-Control-Micro-Racing-Car-Toy-Gift-New-UK/264002720804?_trkparms=aid%3D555017%26algo%3DPL.CASSINI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D55149%26meid%3D5edf19a90ebf40539dd298cde8475213%26pid%3D101006%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26%26itm%3D264002720804&_trksid=p2045573.c101006.m3226

 

and just used the PCB Rx and battery, threw away the motor, and wired the motor connections to the loco, so you could wire them to the slewing motor. If you wanted to be really clever you could wire the left/right steering control to a raise/lower function on the chain?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Y567olXjM

Edited by Corbs
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  • 2 months later...
  • RMweb Gold

Howdy y'all

 

Last night I did some more work on the Bagnall now that the ROD locos and Garratt are mostly finished. I'd opted to use the motion and cylinders from an Electrotren 0-6-0T which I'd used in a different project.

They would not fit in the space as they came so the ends were sawn off.

1424733479_mi0FWAQCSrtkoYEdo3qKQ_thumb_bce2.jpg.6f916eecf09613597e9545e69a84c728.jpg

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_bcdc.jpg.00d9f89193660ba9592c027fa0403231.jpg

 

Replaced with thin plastic from some packaging, then filed and cut to fit before painting.

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_bceb.jpg.d1ae22ae184b9023ff493cf113b4220f.jpg

 

L shaped styrene added to blend the smokebox (the body is not mounted to the chassis to enable access to the battery etc.) into the running plate.

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_bcee.jpg.da7a23ff6506f4d08d258bbc4fc814ca.jpg

 

Now with plates added. needs some representation of a motion bracket.

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_bce3.jpg.2696965efca3c9bf6d5840ed73195189.jpg

 

Testing here on RC with the motion fitted. Not too bad. I've worked out it's the front wheelset which needs adjustment as one wheel is not at 90 degrees to the axle. I hope that fixing this will get rid of the lurching at low speed.

The front wheelset also had thin strips of styrene packing added to eliminate some of the side play that allowed the crankpins to contact the crosshead.

 

I need to finish off the under boiler area, add a backhead and crew to the cab, and fit a rear coupling (probably an NEM pocket to enable some shunting).

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  • RMweb Gold

Whilst having the top speed of a snail is nice for pootling about the layout, the loco was quite gutless and struggled to move more than a couple of (admittedly quite heavy) wagons.

I opted to splice in a remove-able 3.7v-12v converter. I would have gone for the 8v one but oddly it's twice the size. Having a UM plug on each end means I can change it back if needed, or try it on other locos, but most importantly it keeps the battery separate and swappable. In the long term I may hard wire it in to save space.

 

The wiring arrangement now needs a tidy up as it fits within the boiler, but only just. Mostly the overlong shrink wrap is to blame, but I have been carefully dremelling out as much of the inside of the boiler supports as possible.

 

The loco is now much more powerful, the sacrifice being that the battery life is shortened and the low speed ability is still there, but requires a much more careful hand on the throttle.

JX7qg5jNTIurJM3pBrPylA_thumb_bd1d.jpg.20becff3d084bed14e874a537c19d285.jpg

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  • RMweb Gold

F9F0E923-A648-467C-B565-57C9C57C7ECA.jpeg.52731e9e917eb85e684ca778ab9621a8.jpeg

 

Motion bracket and sandboxes added. A slot was cut in the rear bufferbeam for the kadee, misjudged it a bit but fixed with a little fillet.

C25A3B56-BE2D-4084-A38D-9DB0F188B4AC.jpeg.98a76714edf1a3d4df858cc8060420a3.jpeg

 

The NEM pocket was spliced into the chassis and fixed with epoxy overnight.

 

8E228393-8569-42BE-AC5D-B2D8A477B2C0.jpeg.a7c2fd353ad20357620952dd196f36d0.jpeg

 

A cruel close up shot of the other side. The sandbox filler lids are from RT Models. The tops of the cylinders are cut from styrene strip.

 

18E411D7-BF8F-4F04-9E42-C25B5D2AF552.jpeg.4c2e93dfb0f4a883664a376857f69195.jpeg

 

The 12v converter works very well. I did a test on the rollers with the loco at full throttle to ascertain minimum battery life. Just under 23 minutes continuously so not too bad considering in normal use it’ll be sat still a lot of the time.

E0BC7108-D23E-4BE6-8EE4-802ED330F86A.png.f128457641c9d1100b5072a88e541526.png

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 03/03/2019 at 01:27, Corbs said:

Whilst having the top speed of a snail is nice for pootling about the layout, the loco was quite gutless and struggled to move more than a couple of (admittedly quite heavy) wagons.

I opted to splice in a remove-able 3.7v-12v converter. I would have gone for the 8v one but oddly it's twice the size. Having a UM plug on each end means I can change it back if needed, or try it on other locos, but most importantly it keeps the battery separate and swappable. In the long term I may hard wire it in to save space.

 

The wiring arrangement now needs a tidy up as it fits within the boiler, but only just. Mostly the overlong shrink wrap is to blame, but I have been carefully dremelling out as much of the inside of the boiler supports as possible.

 

The loco is now much more powerful, the sacrifice being that the battery life is shortened and the low speed ability is still there, but requires a much more careful hand on the throttle.

JX7qg5jNTIurJM3pBrPylA_thumb_bd1d.jpg.20becff3d084bed14e874a537c19d285.jpg

 

 

 

 

Great thread Corbs,

I've found that I lose low speed control with 12v step up chips, so unless I can use a 3V motor then I use the pololu 9v step up chips. still very small and it gives the best of both worlds, control and battery life.

 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...
  • RMweb Gold

Just over a year on and I am making another one. I didn't fancy dealing with diecast again so made a resin copy of the first one to experiment with.

 

Here is a vid of how that went...

 

 

Edited by Corbs
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