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Can a simple stop, go and simple speed contro be fitted to a Faller road scene vehicle


Londontram
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The title says it all I'm looking at going back to my London transport modeling roots but not trams as before but Trolley buses. 

 Basically they will be guided by the Faller hidden wire system but powered by the overhead instead of the Faller internal rechargeable batterys.

  But with the trolley buses it might be interesting to have the odd diesel bus running too these would share the same hidden wire for there steering.

   The trouble is when ever I've seen Faller vehicles at show they all travel at unrealistically high speeds and stop and start in about 1 second flat.

 So is there a way a real electrical technphobe like me could add a simple stop start speed radio control to a Faller chassis?

 One advantage is being a double decker bus theres a fair amount of room to work with. Any help and advice would be gratefully excepted 

 Thanks Steve

 

OO scale bus and trolley bus together, these Corgi models would be the bases for the conversions.

20210927_143143.jpg.5fab8bd9d38c89c7ae4db591cd6fc712.jpg

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It's an interesting question and one I too have wondered. Even the magnorail system has the issue of consistent speed. In real life traffic speed varies constantly when not out on the open road and vehicles bunch up and spread apart.
I did wonder if a heavy flywheel inside the vehicle body would help. The Deltang RC system allows for smoother inertia but it may be at too high a price point for animated scenery?

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See this is all new to me I'm an old school DC annalog man but where as the Trolley as such don't present to much of a major problem as the two wires work in the same way as the rails do and the Faller system for steering is well proven technology. But RC is all another level for me an evil a very old set in his ways dog and any new tricks need to be fairly basic and simple. I'm also not looking at a large number of RC buses as its only going to be a small 3ft x 18 inches table top experiment so more than likely just the one or two max.

Edited by Londontram
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If you find the Faller onboard batteries work well and are easy to charge I would consider just replacing the onboard speed control system with a RC one. This would mean the overhead wiring would be purely cosmetic, IMO avoiding a lot of hassle!.

 

Question - what type of batteries are the Faller ones and what voltage is the motor?

 

Question - how does the Faller system steer the vehicle? is there a continuous  magnetic strip under the road and what about junctions?

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I believe it might be about 3v but I  don't know much about the Faller motor because to keep costs down I am building the first test Trolley bus with a small Mitsumi motor fitted with a fly wheel driving through 11mm plastic bevel gears onto the front of the two rear axles the second axle will just float and be turned by friction.

 No doubt just using the Faller system might be easier but it's not prototypical and having previously built Tram overhead I'm rather enjoying the challenge but the Trolley buses are not the issue I'm looking if a simple RC speed control can be fitted to a Faller vehicle. 

 Is there a small RC toy that the speed control gear can be lifted off?

 

 The Faller system does use a steel wire set into the road and on a tutorial on YouTube shows a chap who built a simple set of points by making a pizza shaped wedge in ply and set an old hacksaw blade into it held by a screw under the base board at the pointed end so it can swing from side to side to line up the blade on the wedge with one or another of the continuing wires. Some times the simple solutions work best.

 All great fun and the problem solving is a major part of the enjoyment for me. 

Edited by Londontram
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I think you'll find lifting the radio gear from a toy won't give you anything like the finesse you would like. I would strongly suggest you use a Deltang Rx41- 22, configured for loco use, as you don't need steering. This would enable you to use a single small transmitter (TX-22), and select up to 12 vehicles (or locos), and gives very nice inertia control as well. Importantly, you can also program the receivers pulse width modulation output (frequency) which makes a massive amount of difference as to how the motor performs,  particularly at slow speed.

Edited by Giles
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On 27/09/2021 at 22:50, Londontram said:

See this is all new to me I'm an old school DC annalog man but where as the Trolley as such don't present to much of a major problem as the two wires work in the same way as the rails do and the Faller system for steering is well proven technology. But RC is all another level for me an evil a very old set in his ways dog and any new tricks need to be fairly basic and simple. I'm also not looking at a large number of RC buses as its only going to be a small 3ft x 18 inches table top experiment so more than likely just the one or two max.

How about DCC if you have continuous power for the trolley bus?

Not sure what you could do for the diesel bus.

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One of the easiest ways to slow a Faller type vehicle down is to use a different motor, the 12v rated Nigel Lawton mini motor(circa £6.50) is a direct fit into a Faller 163501 motor mount, that comes with the gear wheel but not the worm, but they are available elsewhere, coupled with a 3/3.7v supply that gives a reasonable speed, adding RC to a Trolleybus fitted with this set up is something I'm currently messing with....

But for an idea this is an EFE Rotherham Renown fitted with such. The Faller parts used  are motor mount and gears an the kingpins, front axle is a  scratch apart from those, it needs to be wider than std Faller items. Wheels and skid are pattern parts, battery is a rechargeable CR2 fitted so it can be removed from the underside for easy re charging. Reed switch and on off switch complete circuit. As I say adding speed RC control to this sort of set up is something I'm working on with a Glasgow version of the trolleybus shown in op.

 

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Thanks chaps there's some cracking ideas to explore on here and it's going to take me a while to think things through. I've ordered a Faller front axle of that auction site its one for a Faller 7.5 ton truck so must be somewhere near the buses axle but like Red Devil I'll clone this and make the rest my self.

 I had thought of the torque wind up on the axle and had gone back to a single axle drive and with a small simple circuit (this is only a side project my main one is my Scottish 1900 model which is on a shelf around the room.

 This will only be a table top model with a basic road plan with left turn then a second left then a right turning circle then two rights to take it back off scene so 1) its only short and 2) the directions of the turn cancel each other out.

 I was only interested in the RC for the bus as the Trolley buses will be controlled by a standard controller and will only be one trolley bus running at a time so won't need complicated electronics to move lots of vehicles simultaneously.

 I actually want the Trolly buses to work off the over head rather than it be just for show which is why I'm not considering the Faller drive for all of them just a single bus that's not connected to the overhead.

Anyway all fun and games. Here's the victims of my intended butchery lined up ready the only other addition will be the Corgi Diddler Trolly bus of which I have one on order

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Ding Ding any more fairs please - move on down the bus, plenty of room up stairs, all change!

The Diddler - still in the post

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Thanks again for all the help and ideas.

 Steve

Edited by Londontram
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When I started, I built my first vehicle with single-wheel drive for cornering. It performed poorly, and I quickly converted it to a fixed driving axle (The only exception being a fork-lift which has a differential.). You need both rear wheels driven, and the half dozen 4mm vehicles and 15 or so 7mm, all corner absolutely fine.......

 

 

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