Motorised wagons - a few questions

[009 micro modeller]

I’m currently trying to develop a transporter wagon system in 009 for a shunting puzzle-type layout (thread here). Essentially there will be independently motorised 00 gauge wagons, running on and off the 009 transporters to represent hand-shunting.

 

Currently, I’m supplying power to the rails on top of the transporter via the transporter’s own wheels, with the narrow gauge shunting loco running off overhead wire with return through both rails, thus avoiding the issue of the motorised wagons inappropriately drawing power and running off when they are not at the unloading dock. However, it is proving very difficult to get the transporter to pick up reliably from the narrow gauge rails when the standard gauge wagon is being loaded - it is very sensitive to any slight unevenness or imperfection in the track, or the transporter chassis itself. I have a couple of ideas that I would like to try first to improve things, but if that fails then obviously one solution is to operate the motorised wagons with battery-powered radio control.

 

I did consider radio control originally, but that was as an alternative option to power the narrow gauge loco that didn’t involve conventional 2-rail, not for the motorised wagons themselves. But a lot of people I’ve told about this project and the problems I’m currently having, or who have attempted something similar themselves, have recommended that I should look at the idea of radio control for the motorised wagons, as it would circumvent the transporter pick-up issues. Obviously the narrow gauge line could then either use RC as well or just use conventional 2-rail DC, though there seem to be a couple of secondary benefits of overhead wire (to do with track-holding/adhesion and simplified wiring) so I might keep that bit even though it wouldn’t be strictly necessary any more.

 

In some ways this seems like the more sensible way round to do it anyway, when compared to the opposite option of RC for the narrow gauge and 2-rail for the motorised wagons. The latter can be relatively lightweight and will be motorised with Locosnstuff bogies with small coreless motors. They also won’t need to move much, only on and off the transporters relatively infrequently, so hopefully will last a long time between charges. In contrast, the narrow gauge loco will be used much more intensively and will probably draw a lot of power when shunting, given the weight of the transporter plus motorised wagon (of which it will haul/propel up to two at a time).

 

The thing that stopped me from going down the radio control route for the standard gauge wagons initially is that I need five of them to operate the layout (plus any spares to allow charging, maintenance etc., especially at exhibitions), whereas I only need one narrow gauge loco at a time, so it seems as though it would cost more to fit RC to the standard gauge wagons. So my first question is how much this is actually likely to cost? The speed needs to be reasonably controllable and slow but other than that it doesn’t necessarily have to be massively sophisticated, as all I’ll need the motorised wagons to do is to basically run up and down a short section of straight track. I’ve even seen some railway modellers use control equipment stripped from cheapo radio control toy cars, and am wondering if this might be suitable for my purposes?

 

Also, I’ll need the wagons to be able to run without interfering with each other. Is it possible to have one transmitter/controller and switch between 5 channels to control each of them, one at a time? I’m also wondering if there are likely to be issues with external interference, especially at exhibitions.

 

Finally charging - from a rough calculation it looks as though, even with quite intensive operation, each of the five wagons would only need to run about 40ft per day during a 7-hour exhibition day, and obviously much less during a normal session at home. So assuming they start the day fully charged, would I actually need to have spares to allow them to charge, even at an exhibition? Unless the battery will drain quickly simply because the wagon is switched on, even if not actually running. I’m also not entirely sure how I would know when they’re about to run out of battery, given that they’re not constantly running.

[Nigelcliffe]

You need to buy some stuff and start experimenting.   

 

Yes, motorising the wagons seems sensible.     Unless you fit something to indicate run time of each wagon, you notice its going to need charging when its not as quick moving as normal - ie. battery starting to die. 

Typically you'll recharge a single cell battery in under an hour, so you won't need lots of spare wagons, or you arrange the batteries to be easy to swap out of a wagon.    
I'd expect a single Lipo cell would give you around 30mins to 60mins running of wagons (actually moving), assuming your drive is reasonably efficient and low friction.  That should give you a day's exhibition running from the wagons in practise, as most of the time they'll be stationary.   

 

Micron Radio Control are one retailer(*) of stuff you need for the radio side (electronic receivers, transmitters, model batteries and suitable charging circuits).     If you explain what you're trying to do, I expect they'd give you a recommended set of starting devices to work from.  
Yes, you can run 5 (or more) wagons independently.     
Motors will be "how long is your string";  you need things which are geared down to the speed you want the wagons to move - many Radio Controlled toy cars are going to be too fast unless you change the gearing.      There are suppliers of motors/gearboxes for radio controlled HO road vehicles which run at sensible speeds, but many of those are in places like Germany, and you've got Brexit hassles to sort out imports.   (I've used such things for slow speed controlled model vehicles in 4mm and 2mm, they can work well).  

 

(* I've no connection, other than buying a few things from them over the years ).  

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:

You need to buy some stuff and start experimenting. 

I have done this for almost every other part of this project, just not for radio control as yet (given that at this stage it would represent a complete departure from the way I’ve been trying to engineer it so far).

 

1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:

Yes, motorising the wagons seems sensible.     Unless you fit something to indicate run time of each wagon, you notice its going to need charging when its not as quick moving as normal - ie. battery starting to die. 

Of course, and it should usually be fairly obvious when that’s happening. But in this case they’d be running at very low speeds, relatively infrequently and only for about 6 inches at a time, so I’m not sure it would be very noticeable. Potentially they could somehow be charged while on the unloading siding, but even then that’s only going to allow two wagons to charge at a time. Obviously over time I’d probably get used to how long they last on one charge, but the point is that based on what I’ve read about battery powered radio control I’d hope they would last for a relatively long time, given that each individual wagon will not need to move that often.

 

1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:

I'd expect a single Lipo cell would give you around 30mins to 60mins running of wagons (actually moving), assuming your drive is reasonably efficient and low friction.  That should give you a day's exhibition running from the wagons in practise, as most of the time they'll be stationary.   

Thank you, that’s really helpful and exactly the sort of information I needed (in terms of quantifying the time). Does it matter if the wagons are still switched on when not running?

 

The motor bogies have drive to both axles via gearing, quite smooth running and a fairly standard setup. I’m also wondering if I would get away with slightly less adhesive weight if they don’t need to pick up from the track - obviously this would help the 009 locos as well by keeping the overall weight down.

 

1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:

Motors will be "how long is your string";  you need things which are geared down to the speed you want the wagons to move - many Radio Controlled toy cars are going to be too fast unless you change the gearing.

In the examples that I’ve seen from other railway modellers, I don’t think they’ve used the motor itself, just the control circuitry and the transmitter. Often as an intermediate step before improving with better quality stuff, however given that I need at least 5 wagons but they don’t have to do that much I’m wondering whether it might work as a cheaper solution long-term as well.

[Red Devil]

You may find some of the stuff on this of use.....then again you may not!😀

 

[Giles]

Yes - Receivers consume power when they're turned on, whether they are in action or not.....

You may find slow speed (if you can get them) 6mm gearmotors driving through bevel gears provide the most efficient drive.

micron Tx 22 transmitter will allow you to control up to 12 different locos with the one transmitter, as long as you use Receivers with the -22 suffix.

 

You can get a very wide variety of batteries, and if you choose a wide flat one (4mm thick); you may very well get a full day's work out of it (600mAh say.bearing in mind the main load is the receiver!)

You know know they're running out when they suddenly become a bit unreliable!

 

I wouldn't bother using recycled toy car stuff - the proper stuff from Micron is very much better and simpler, and probably very little more expensive.

[009 micro modeller]

3 minutes ago, Giles said:

Yes - Receivers consume power when they're turned on, whether they are in action or not.....

That’s also helpful to know, thank you. Is that still the case if the transmitter is off or set to a different channel? I assume you’d generally have an on/off switch somewhere on the vehicle itself to turn it off completely when it’s put away at the end of the operating session. The issue I have is that, if they cannot be charged on the layout (which is probably a bit too complicated/unreliable, especially if it involves using the rails to charge), the standard gauge wagons will need to be removed for charging, which means that I need to put the wagon on a transporter and get it off scene before it dies completely. Ideally I’d just have one spare, always charged and ready to go, and swap it with whichever one is running out. But although the overall operation of the layout means they won’t move much and will last quite a long time, it’s also unpredictable enough (using a system of shunting cards) that I can’t eliminate the possibility that more than one will run out at a time. If I suddenly have to have twice as many motorised wagons to cover for the possibility that they all run out of charge at the same time it’s probably going to get a bit too expensive. It might be possible though (at exhibitions) for me to regularly charge each wagon for a short time, well before they actually run out, and work that into the operating sequence, which means I’d only need one, possibly two spares. At home I’d only want to run for about an hour at a time so wouldn’t need to do anything so complicated.

 

22 minutes ago, Giles said:

You may find slow speed (if you can get them) 6mm gearmotors driving through bevel gears provide the most efficient drive.

I was hoping to use the motors already fitted to the Locosnstuff bogies (modern, coreless and very good). I think they’re 12V but I won’t be needing full speed at any point so I don’t think I’ll need a step-up or anything like that.

[wasdavetheroad]

My experience of Deltang receivers, Micron may be similar, is when idle the Rx consumes about 15mA per hour, there may be an auto shutdown after 1 hour idle but that is adjustable

[Dave John]

If you are very concerned about cost these might do ;

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315210702629?itmmeta=01HVHK3618JS9EG21G45RSM1P9&hash=item4964059f25:g:eqQAAOSwHIFl64Fb&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8OWUHi%2B89h%2BZnI6bupALuR98nJaT0UTFB%2FyYnjp%2BTiRkN%2F90y%2BSSzaUZl7fbMQQLKNzO96YHr4AkpoYmmxWIBpE%2Fkq7lP8We6S%2BuCP6gNx18ml4P0S3aqgSpuxEYlYG5Peix9M5y4IitgJyWdyBFLlhza2K2GzYJ94wl3C33G5dy7TzDHNsKDYau%2BdrQlFQvAOX7rGbB1HYh5Z1qIJzNhmwCSGIyjLJNoDqrRBZLQbG8buCJZHFLJk%2Bz0ShhwgbBaZYl%2BqCauWUYGG0Hui1kO2ohRt%2BN3H8G69yZ1hYl%2FWD8CIm3sa8Yj3HcLfalwTPdmA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9zgjLPcYw

 

 

They will run off 3x AAA cells and with a bit of electronics would control a motor. I used them in this wagon project. 

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, wasdavetheroad said:

My experience of Deltang receivers, Micron may be similar, is when idle the Rx consumes about 15mA per hour, there may be an auto shutdown after 1 hour idle but that is adjustable

I doubt they’d be idle for quite as long as that.

[Nigelcliffe]

The things I've made have all been "keep it really simple".   So, there isn't an on-off switch, instead the battery connector is easily accessible, and I just disconnect the battery.  With battery disconnected its possible to attach the charger to the battery.  

I could add an on-off switch, but don't find it needed. 

 

 

I doubt that 4mm wagons need more than a single axle drive.    Gearmotors with a final bevel drive are more power-efficient than worm drives, so everything else being equal, the battery lasts longer.  

 

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

25 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

I doubt that 4mm wagons need more than a single axle drive. 

Agreed, it’s just that the bogies I’m using already have both axles driven, if I keep using them (they should be fairly suitable). It should also help in this context when transitioning from the transporter to the loading dock (where there might be a slightly uneven spot).

[Mrs RCTrains]

Are you likely to get to either Stoneleigh or Llangollen? Phil (RCTrains) has been working with Andy at Micron - testing the new receivers etc for him, and our systems are pretty much the same. It might help, if you can get to either show, for you to see and discuss your options before you make any final decisions. We're on stand Y6 at Stoneleigh and Platform 6 at Llangollen. (We also understand shunting puzzles having a manual one in the museum at the WHHR where we both volunteer). 

 

[009 micro modeller]

7 hours ago, Mrs RCTrains said:

Are you likely to get to either Stoneleigh or Llangollen? Phil (RCTrains) has been working with Andy at Micron - testing the new receivers etc for him, and our systems are pretty much the same. It might help, if you can get to either show, for you to see and discuss your options before you make any final decisions. We're on stand Y6 at Stoneleigh and Platform 6 at Llangollen. (We also understand shunting puzzles having a manual one in the museum at the WHHR where we both volunteer). 

 

Unfortunately probably not for Stoneleigh as it clashes with Narrow Gauge South (but currently I’m scheduled to work that weekend anyway so probably won’t do either, sadly). Llangollen could work in theory but is a long way for me to go. As they are garden railway shows, would it still be possible to look at the RC equipment for smaller scales?

 

 The reason to use RC on this would be if the electrical pickups can’t be made to work reliably for the method I’m currently using.

[Mrs RCTrains]

On 19/04/2024 at 06:07, 009 micro modeller said:

Unfortunately probably not for Stoneleigh as it clashes with Narrow Gauge South (but currently I’m scheduled to work that weekend anyway so probably won’t do either, sadly). Llangollen could work in theory but is a long way for me to go. As they are garden railway shows, would it still be possible to look at the RC equipment for smaller scales?

 

 The reason to use RC on this would be if the electrical pickups can’t be made to work reliably for the method I’m currently using.

Yes, there should be. The smallest receiver is fingernail size (Phil's been trying to put r/c into an N gauge loco - his only problem is finding a battery small enough!). Possibly not installed in a smaller loco but the principle is the same. We're also going to be at the Llanfair show (31 August and 1 September) and Steam in Beds at the end of November if either of those are easier for you to get to.