Experiments with Faller Car System

[CWJ]

Fantastic amount of technology in a small space there, thanks for the photos! I assume you've heard of probably the largest Faller-based car system in the world: http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/exhibit/technology/carsystem/technology/

 

I'm off to read about the DCCar system, it sounds interesting...

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

PS. Does the system have any problem communicating with the vehicles when they lose sight of each other (e.g. if a vehicle goes behind a building)?

[IANM]

Hello everybody,

For those too squeamish to butcher the models themselves, Model Roads & Tramways offer a very reasonable and knowledgeable service - I've dealt a lot with Ron Boxall who is based in Fleetwood and who attends a few northern shows. One of our hobby's true gentlemen and he holds most equipment and spares in stock.

 

Ron has converted a few LT RT's for me as well as some Portuguese bus models for a Lisbon tram layout I am doing. The red bus in the start set 161506 seen here: http://www.midlandred.org.uk/fabuses.shtml works well with the concept models RF. Be aware that some of the buses have the full body that lifts off the chassis, whereas others such as the Mercedes 0405 has the chassis and lower body as one piece.

 

MR&T are here http://www.modelroadsandtramways.co.uk/faller-car-system.html and I have no connection other than a satisfied customer for more than 5 years.

 

The faller chassis do work okay with die casts, but battery drain is quicker and obviously wear on the moving parts will come sooner.

[Trofimow]

Fantastic amount of technology in a small space there, thanks for the photos! I assume you've heard of probably the largest Faller-based car system in the world: http://www.miniatur-...tem/technology/

 

I'm off to read about the DCCar system, it sounds interesting...

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

PS. Does the system have any problem communicating with the vehicles when they lose sight of each other (e.g. if a vehicle goes behind a building)?

 

Hi Will,

 

Yes, I've been to Miniatur Wunderland, what they have achieved is absolutely amazing. They use their own bespoke system to control the road vehicles.

 

As regards your question about DCCar system communication, there are two distinct pathways, vehicle to vehicle and DCC command station to vehicle.

 

The vehicle will normally continue to travel at the last speed step passed to it and only needs to "see" the command station when a change of state is required. This can be done by placing IR LEDs at suitable locations around the layout where vehicles are required to stop or change speed, or switch on or off indicators, headlights, etc, These LEDs can be hidden inside a building, or roadside furniture, or underneath a permanantly parked vehicle, or even embedded in the roadway.

 

There is an alternative method whereby the layout can be "floodlit" in Infra Red, but this requires additional components and sensors in the vehicles and it may be more difficult to ensure line of sight communication at all times.

 

The vehicle to vehicle communication only comes into play when one vehicle comes up behind another in traffic and detects the IR signals transmitted by it. The following vehicle will slow to match the speed of the one in front, and will maintain a safe distance. If the leading vehicle stops, the follower will stop behind it, and will move off again when the leading vehicle does so. The rates of braking and accelleration can be set to suit the individual vehicle using CVs in the same way as with a loco decoder.

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

More vehicle details.

 

The two RT's are the first models I did and are, as PhilJ W pointed out, Tower Models kits, not Kiel Kraft as I had incorrectly remembered (it was a long time ago).

 

 

Conversion uses the bus from the faller start set. The front axle is removed from the Faller vehicle and fitted in place of the front axle provided in the kit. Some material will need to be removed from the area around the wheels to ensure that they can articulate without binding on anything. I used a small bud shaped grinding stone in a minidrill to do this.

 

The main part of the faller bus chassis is then cut so as to physically separate the batteries, charging socket and reed switch, whilst preserving the motor, back axle and on/off switch as one unit. If possible, keep all the wiring intact.

 

 

The batteries are glued to the underside of the upper deck and the other parts fixed in place as the picture. With care, and a little bit of luck, no rewiring is necessary.

 

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

A bit about turnouts.

 

There are many ways of making turnouts - here's the way I've done it....

 

Having drawn out the line of the guide wire on the roadway, use a router to produce an approximately triangular recess in the surface to permit the necessary movement of the guide wire. The moving switch wire is continuous from the approach and is bent down at 90 degrees at the end and passed through a slot in the baseboard.

The two additional recesses are for reed switches to detect when the vehicle is clear of the turnout.

 

The diverging wires are bent down at an angle and pass through the ends of the slot, thus forming a positive stop for the moving switch wire.

 

 

The moving wire is supported with a couple of layers of smooth card or plastic to keep it level.

 

Here the reeds have also been fitted and filler added.

 

The turnout is operated by a cheap servo simply glued to a block of wood thus..

 

The servo is glued under the baseboard with the end of the switch wire passed through the operating arm...

 

 

I use an ESU Switch Pilot Servo to control the servo. In my case, it is controlled by the computer via the DCC system, but it could also be used with push buttons from a control panel.

 

 

Once the turnout has been tested and is operating correctly a thin piece of clear plastic is glued to the surface of the roadway to cover the moving wire and operating slot. The plastic tray that the Switch pilot comes in makes an ideal material as it is thin enough not to decouple the guide magnets, yet rigid enough to support a vehicle.

 

 

Alan

[Jon Fitness]

Excellent stuff Alan! Many thanks for posting this up. I will eventually dig out my layout/vehicles with a view to investigating this system (I'm all gauge 0'd up at the moment!). Looking forward to seeing the DCC side of things, if only to stop the vehicles rear ending on my layout!

JF

[CWJ]

Thanks for sharing your 'turnout' design, it is much simpler and cheaper than the alternative.

[Jon Fitness]

My methods are broadly similar but at the moment my points are manual. Have a look here if you are interested. Please excuse the rather unfinished website as I was in the middle of updating it and stopped (no time!)

Meanwhile, keep up the great work Alan.

Cheers

JF

[Trofimow]

My methods are broadly similar but at the moment my points are manual. Have a look here if you are interested.

Cheers

JF

 

Thanks for that Jon, you have an interesting site there. I'd be interested to see more pics of your layout if it has developed further since you last updated the site.

 

Fascinating to see that we have come up with very similar solutions to making points.

 

I have one Y point where the large divergence angle has been causing problems with keeping the moving guide wire level over the full operating range.

 

It looks like your pivoting guide wire would be more appropriate in this case than my flexing guide wire approach. I'll rebuild this point to your design and see if it works better.

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

It seems that the good citizens of Effingham have been complaining about the poor standard of refuse collection, so the Borough Council have sanctioned the purchase of a brand new state of the art dustcart.

 

It is currently in works for modifications...

 

This is a base toys model to be motorised and fitted with DCCar control - I'm sure I'm tempting fate by posting a work in progress, but let's live dangerously.

 

The main donor vehicle is this bus from a start set. I found these on Amazon at a very reasonable price.

 

The Base Toys chassis is a standard casting which is common to many of their lorries, so this conversion should work for a wide range of Base Toys Models.

 

 

The dustcart is dismantled to its component parts. The chassis then needs to have the central area between the chassis rails opened out to leave space for the motor.

 

Watch this space for the next exciting instalment....

 

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

A bit more progress with the dustcart.

 

The back axle from the faller bus comes with brass sleeve bearings, which are a perfict fit for the axle slot in the cast chassis.

 

A blob of quick setting epoxy secures it in place.

 

The bus wheels are a little small compared with the originals, so I swapped them with a pair from a Faller truck chassis, which are a closer match. They are a simple push fit on the axle.

 

The motor slips neatly between the chassis rails, and is shown trial fitted here. It is not fixed in place yet as there is still some metal bashing to do...

 

The front axle from the Faller truck will also be used here. The bus wheels and front axle will then be used with the remainder of the Faller truck chassis on another model.

 

The cast chassis needs the underside of the rails removed flush to allow the Faller steering axle to fit.

The corners were filed from the Faller mounting tower to make it approximately circular in section and hole was drilled through the centre of the chassis casting to allow a push fit. The vertical alignment can then be adjusted to get the chassis sitting level.

 

 

There is not much clearance between the top of the Faller axle assembly and the underside of the chassis so vertical movement of the wheels is very limited. This will need some road testing on the completed unit to see if it is a problem. If so a little more metal may have to be removed at the sides of the casting, but here is not much to play with.

 

The motor can now be fitted, adjusted for gear mesh, and then fixed in place with a small touch of superglue or epoxy.

 

 

The basic chassis is can now be tested using flying leads.

 

More to follow as time allows...

 

Alan

[Jon Fitness]

Nice bit of chassis bashing there Alan! Which faller chassis have the biggest wheels? My buses have the wheels from the donor bus chassis and look much too small with them all being HO rather than OO. If the truck ones are bigger I'll head for those for conversion.

Keep up the good work.

JF

[Red Devil]

Alan, Jon. I'm just getting into the Faller stuff now, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/172/entry-10120-fun-with-faller/ I'm not brave enugh yet to carve up a Faller chassis to the same degree as on the Base toy conversion above!

 

I definately want to do a bus conversion is there any differences in the various Faller buses and coaches or are they pretty much all the same/similar chassis?

 

I think I'll probably use the Tower AEC Regent 3/RT as the base body, trying to alter that to a Leeds AEC regent 3/Roe and I'm just on the lookout for a chassis to use now.

[Trofimow]

Nice bit of chassis bashing there Alan! Which faller chassis have the biggest wheels? My buses have the wheels from the donor bus chassis and look much too small with them all being HO rather than OO. If the truck ones are bigger I'll head for those for conversion.

Keep up the good work.

JF

 

The wheels on the city bus are 11.2mm diameter, and those on the standard box van in the starter sets come out at 12.5mm.

 

You may be able to get them as spares through Gaugemaster or Ebay.

 

Alternatively, all sorts of parts including wheels with ball bearings are available from http://www.mikromodellbau.de/Shop/artikelauswahl.php?kid=100

 

Another possible source for wheels and other bits is https://www.shop.kkp...php/language/en

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

Alan, Jon. I'm just getting into the Faller stuff now, http://www.rmweb.co....un-with-faller/ I'm not brave enugh yet to carve up a Faller chassis to the same degree as on the Base toy conversion above!

 

I definately want to do a bus conversion is there any differences in the various Faller buses and coaches or are they pretty much all the same/similar chassis?

 

I think I'll probably use the Tower AEC Regent 3/RT as the base body, trying to alter that to a Leeds AEC regent 3/Roe and I'm just on the lookout for a chassis to use now.

 

There are a few variations in the Faller chassis.

 

The lorries as in your own "Fun with Faller" thread have a vertically mounted motor.

 

The bus used in my conversion has a horizontally mounted motor as shown in the picture.

 

My own conversions of the Tower bus kits used a faller tourist coach, which has a slightly different horizontal transmission, but can be fitted as a complete unit into the Tower kit as shown earlier in this thread.

It used to be available in a starter set, but I don't know if they still offer it that way.

 

You mention the large size of the Faller batteries in your thread.

 

There are alternatives, one of which I will be using for the dustcart as there is no way the Faller batteries are going to fit in the small body.

 

Alan

[BernardTPM]

Another possible source of wheels is The Little Bus Company who do nice one piece rubber wheels http://www.little-bu...calewheels.html

[Jon Fitness]

The wheels on the city bus are 11.2mm diameter, and those on the standard box van in the starter sets come out at 12.5mm.

 

You may be able to get them as spares through Gaugemaster or Ebay.

 

Alternatively, all sorts of parts including wheels with ball bearings are available from http://www.mikromode...ahl.php?kid=100

 

Another possible source for wheels and other bits is https://www.shop.kkp...php/language/en

 

Alan

Thanks for those! Looks very useful.

Cheers

JF

[Trofimow]

Another possible source of wheels is The Little Bus Company who do nice one piece rubber wheels http://www.little-bu...calewheels.html

 

Those wheels look good Bernard.

Have you used them on a working model - are they easy to adapt to the Faller steering assembly?

 

Alan

[BernardTPM]

I haven't used them on a working model myself, but I believe they have been used on Dewsbury Midland. They certainly push onto an axle and run true. And a very good price!

[Trofimow]

Thanks Bernard.

If they work on the Dewsbury Midland hill climbing bus, that's good enough for me!

I'll order a couple of sets to try out.

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

Time now to fit the rear floor to the chassis

 

 

The underside of the plastic moulding needs some material removed to clear the motor.

Likewise, the side rails need to be thinned from the inside.

 

A piece of the side rail is cut away at the rear of one side to provide a place to fit the on/off switch.

Again, the underside of the floor will need to be thinned to allow the switch to sit level with the bottom of the side rails.

 

A chunk out of the rear of the floor to fit the charging socket and a couple of holes in the floor for wiring to pass through complete the surgery.

 

The floor and rear body can then be test fitted to the chassis.

 

Next will be the electrics....

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

The Faller batteries from the donor vehicle are too big to fit in the limited space inside the body.

 

As an alternative, I am using a Lithium Polymer (Lipo) battery as commonly used in radio controlled models.

These are also used by European DCCar modellers as they can be had small enough for even the most challenging of models.

 

This particular example is 320 mAh at 3.7 volts as against 250 mAh at 2.4 volts for the Faller battery pack and is physically smaller.

It fits easily in the rear body.

 

The DCCar decoder I'll be using is designed for use with Lipo batteries and will take care of the higher voltage.

If not using a decoder, two diodes would be necessary in series with the motor to reduce the voltage to that of the Faller battery.

 

If you are not familiar with this type of battery, it is essential that you do a little research before attempting to use them.

Whilst they are quite safe if used correctly, the consequences of misuse are potentially hazardous.

 

Lipo batteries have special requirements for safe use and require a charger specially designed for the purpose.

Under no circumstances must the Faller charger be used.

 

The basics that you need to know for safe use can be found here

http://www.rcmods.co...safety_tips.php

 

More information, including some scary videos of deliberate misuse are here

http://www.rchelisit...afety_guide.php

 

Further progress awaits the arrival of the decoder in the post...

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

Progress on the dustcart is stalled until the decoder arrives by snail mail - but in the meantime, there's still another Faller bus chassis sitting there, looking for a purpose in life...

 

So onto my next victim. I've designed the roadway in Railroad & Co to allow for a fire engine to run on a call out - no I won't be trying to emulate Minatur Wunderland - there will only be one working fire engine.

 

Here are the potential candidates:

 

 

This Trackside model turned out to have insufficent internal space.

 

 

But this Oxford model looks to be a possibility, so let's give it a try.

 

 

The Faller bus chassis can be cut to produce this

 

 

The Oxford chassis has a detailed rear extension, which will have to come off...

 

 

It can be fixed permanently to the rear of the body casting.

 

The chassis can then be slotted to take the mechanism, complete with charging plug. The switch will have to come off though, and be found another home.

 

 

That's the story so far, time will tell how this one works out...

 

 

Alan

[Trofimow]

As I've mentioned before, I'm new to this RM Webbery stuff.

 

Publishing work in progress on t'interweb does give one an incentive to make progress with a project.

On the other hand, when things go a little pear shaped, everybody gets to see it....ho hum.

 

Having cut the Faller chassis to produce this:

 

 

The two pillars that retain the motor, made it too wide to fit the slot cut in the Oxford chassis between the upstanding detail parts on either side, so I cut away more material from the Faller chassis until it fitted, producing this:

 

 

The motor is held in place with a dab of glue.

 

So far, so good, but with the mechanism fitted in place in the slot cut in the fire engine chassis, the whole thing was down by the stern as the axle height was too high.

 

Rats! If I'd left the side wings on the mechanism, they would have sat underneath the Oxford chassis, making an easy fix at the correct axle height.

 

What now? Well as my boss used to say, you're gonna need a DFA for that. Time for me to live up to the tag line in my sig.

 

An offcut of brass etch from the box of bits, and a quantity of thick gap filling superglue and we get this:

 

It's not pretty, but it will work and everything sits level. The Faller bits now sit just below the Oxford Chassis. A bit of epoxy putty to fill and join the two sections together around the wheel arches restores some structural integrity.

 

 

Now to sort out the front end. As you can see from the previous picture of the underside, there's a lot of material in the way of where the Faller front axle will need to go. As much as possible of this has to be removed without touching the mountings for the front bumper.

 

 

Plenty of space must be created for the wheels to steer and to move up and down.

 

I'll cover fitting the front axle next time...(if all goes well).

 

Alan

[Jon Fitness]

It is amazing how much abuse those faller chassis will take! Some of mine have had some real attention from the hacksaw and lived to tell the tale. At least the Faller bits are made of the sort of plastic that the likes of Plasticweld will bond together.

JF