wasdavetheroad

How much does RC and battery power cost? A complex question but with my experience over a few years in converting about 50 locos with commercially available equipment is adding together the Transmitter, receiver, ancillary electronics such as a voltage booster if needed, batteries, chargers etc etc would suggest allow a budget of about £50 per loco. There are some 'fixed' costs such as the battery charger(s) and the control transmitters(s) which cost less per loco as you convert more locos. This suggests for me a similar investment to going DCC with, for me, the significant advantage of no track wiring. There are a lot cheaper solutions available for those who want to adapt existing control gear etc. Visit http://www.freerails.com/view_forum.php?id=45 for extensive discussion, warning there is a lot of information buried there

BlueRail Trains first board had essentially what you describe. The receiver seamlessly switched between track power and battery power when the loco was moving and I bought a couple to test. It worked well but the size of the boards was too large for my small UK locomotives and I did not like the smart phone touch screen control, I much prefer knobs and switches. The latest boards are apparently smaller but I don't know how far they got with integrating auto charging through the track, apparently this is electronically doable. When this solution is finally achieved we have reached the holy grail in train control, seamless DC/DCC/battery power with auto on track recharging and controlling your loco either through the rails, DCC, or via direct radio link. I calculated that my layout would have about 2 thirds of the plain track powered and all the fiddly parts unpowered, even without auto on track charging this would essentially triple the capacity of the onboard battery.

Ah! I read somewhere that you could use a N-FET (transistor?) to switch the 5V+ input voltage of a relay. How many relays do you want to control and what voltage do you want them to switch? It seems the way to switch points with Deltang gear is to use a servo motor which the Rx can control easily. I am not familiar with how relays work but they are basically a 'safe' means of high power switching? and I presume the 5+V triggering the relay has to be continually applied or is it a toggle with a pulse of power to switch on or off? The reason I ask is if it is a toggle or you are switching a single relay you theoretically use the channel 1 MOTOR output of the Rx to switch a single relay, plenty of power there, or if it is a toggle needed a simple multi way switch could control several relays. The speed control is only a variable resistor and could be replaced with a switch or the RX can be programmed to give a minimum voltage output higher than 5V, theoretically. a simple 'blip' of the throttle would then switch the relay. I have had positive experiences with Micron Radio Control and reckon that if there is a solution to your problem they will find it as they know a lot more about this electronic trickery than me. edit - just visited the Micron site, those FET buffers look like the way to go

Interesting, what are you hoping to use the relay for? I am thinking there must be a workaround somewhere?

Check out this site for diagrams of how to wire LEDS with Deltang receivers https://rctrains.co.uk/LEDs.htm The penultimate diagram is the one that is relevant to using the Deltang Rx auto light feature with P1 and P2. Wire up one set of LEDS as described to P1 and the second set with colours reversed to P2 I have copied the diagram here but do read that site

OK, this is a Deltang RX60-22. The 'L' pad is only used to monitor battery voltage when used with a voltage booster. The 'L' pad does nothing else. The 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 pads provide up to 3.3V to power LEDS, control servos etc etc, for LEDS the current should be no more than 20mA. Connect the 'P' pad to the LED and the other wire on the LED to the NEG terminal? Others will know more about connecting leds but I do know that using pads 1 to 5 you can independently control red and white front and rear lights with any combination off or on. You need to program the receiver to do this. Example front on rear off - pulling a train front on rear on - running light engine both off - stabled or loco second in a double header front off rear on - pushing from rear of train red on front and rear - stabled in a loop that can be approached from both ends. All from one switch on the transmitter, I did a test rig a few years ago and just have to remember where I put the notes http://www.deltang.co.uk/rx60c.htm

I would have the thought the original controller with the central 'click' would have been calibrated during manufacture, as potentiometers have a tolerance in their resistance. Maybe recalibration is possible?

Sorry, I should have explained my controller is for radio control, the speed control is still a pot though.

The speed control knob is a potentiometer and the 12 o'clock click is called a detent, You can also get potentiometers with multiple detents so you could simulate speed control 'notches' . I prefer this to using a direction switch although both options are available.

Look for chargers designed for use with small RC planes etc which use 1S batteries, Micron Radio Control have a couple of types. Note that charging is generally recommended to be no more than 1C so a 200mAh battery would have a recommended charge rate of 200mA per hour. RC plane fliers want to charge rapidly but this stresses the battery. I remove the battery for recharging so 'recharge time' is how long it takes to replace the battery with a fresh one, usually about a minute!. My batteries have UM style connectors. http://www.micronradiocontrol.co.uk/charger.html#psu-usb-2a

Is the Class 66 bogie a direct replacement for the Class 31 or is the wheel spacing the same and the frames etc just cosmetic? I have read that is should be possible to replace the bogies on a Lima Class 50 with Class 37 bogies as this was done in real life. Of course some chassis modifications would be needed as well?

maybe a crude representation of a GWR pressed steel double bolster bogie HMRS drawing 26700?

If you use a dehumidifier make sure it is a dessicant one, they work well at low temperatures and the refrigerant ones are not efficient at low temperatures

Good point as my double heading is 2 locos of same model and a similar age from the same manufacturer. Some might consider a 10% speed difference as too much and I worried that a slower loco leading would hold back the faster loco. Not so!, as soon as you couple the 'faster' loco to the train in becomes the 'slower' loco. My point about flexible couplings is because I noticed that even when running light engine with the faster leading on my continuous circuit there where several areas on the circuit where the couplings swopped from the expected tension to compression and then back again, weird, anyway it did not matter so I did not investigate further.

Could you alter the garden wall so a pair of outward opening doors could replace the up and over door. It should be straightforward to apply plenty of insulation to the inside of the doors. Maybe even a pair of doors with different widths so no intrusion onto the pavement. Being cavity walled (insulated) brick built security will be less of a problem once the doors and windows are secured. Have the side windows narrow depth placed high on the wall with security bars? A cheaper option to underfloor heating could be a combination of fan heaters/ tubular radiators mounted high on the rear end wall. with good insulation you will be surprised how few watts you need. My insulated room uses a fan heater which at the 1Kw setting can keep the inside temperature 16C above the outside ambient level. The winter temperature is set at below 10C and I blast the temperature up to +18C using a second fan heater if needed.

If both loco and tender speeds have less than a 10% difference it should be OK as I found out by researching double heading DC locos. DCC wiki also stated the 10% difference as OK. You might want to consider a more flexible connection between tender and loco such as a modified tension lock type coupler.

I don't have any experience of refrigerant dehumidifiers but apparently they don't work well below an ambient temperature of about 20 degrees. Based on figures for 85 days last winter my dessicant version used an average of 100 watts which was enough to raise the temperature in the railway shed by 1.66 degrees above the outside temperature. It used a total of 209 Kwh which cost £37 or just over 43p per day

I use a dehumidifier and a fan heater set to frost protection. The relative humidity is maintained at about 50% and the lowest temperature so far this winter is just over 8 C. A dessicant dehumidifier is better as it works well at low temperatures. Mine can pipe the water outside but I empty the internal reservoir every day as I keep a record of the electricity usage. They don't come cheap though, my Ecoair was £140 and Meaco is good as well, they are both Which best buys.

Which receiver are you going to use because in model planes etc you can fit a BEC which is a battery elimination circuit?. This provides a low voltage to power the receiver from the high voltage battery powering the motor. I don't get any emails either

The amount of energy available in the battery(s) is the total not just the single battery total. For my express locos I use a 9V voltage booster with 2 x 3.7V batteries connected in series, this has a conversion efficiency of over 90%. in other words 10% of the batteries capacity is used in the conversion process. If you use a 12V booster the efficiency drops to about 80%. Your locos will have different power requirements, mine range from just over 100mA to one loco with 500mA. A low power requirement loco can have a single battery giving a 9V boost at 80% or better efficiency for up to locos which need 300mA , if you want 12v the loco limit is 250mA. If you don't mind the battery voltage declining as the batteries discharge you don't need a booster, 3X lipo batteries in series will provide 12.6V fully charged and 9V discharged, 9V is enough for an express 4-6-2 loco to pull a 12 coach train at a scale 60mph. My heavy freight locos use 2 batteries in series giving 8.4V down to 6V. Maximum speeds with a long train are over 30mph fully charged and over 25mph depleted, this OK as the unfitted train has a speed limit of 25mph. If you are using Lipo batteries don't over discharge them!

My baseboards are a triple layer of 50mm blue foam which I bought about 10 years ago. It was delivered on a lorry in a huge pack. the baseboards rest on a mixture of tables and staging and are immensely strong. I used the recommended glue but can't remember what it is called except to say the glue should not dissolve plastic. I also use long brass screws, up to 10cm, not self tapping, which hold surprisingly well. Smear the thread with some Copydex and it sticks like the proverbial to the blanket. Good luck if you want to remove the screw

Is it a standard 440mm radius point?, if so it looks like the wheel flange is riding up over end of the 'V'

how about googling continuous rotation rotary switches, you may be surprised

It depends on what you want the loco to do and how long you want it to do it!. Then you have to find the space for the battery and associated electronics. The smallest loco I have converted is a Hornby Railroad Smokey Joe 0-4-0, just to see if I could do it. I managed to fit the receiver and a single 100mAh battery and removed the track pickups which always improves performance. Smokey Joe does not have the most advanced mechanism. Testing - maximum speed running light engine with a fully charged battery was somewhat over 30mph. Pulling wagons somewhat slower. I set the receiver maximum speed to 20mph and ran an endurance test. Pulling those 4 wagons the receiver switched off the power to stop the battery over discharging at about 3V. This was after 45 minutes during which the loco had completed 27 circuits of my 5x2 metre layout. from this I calculated that the loco power requirement with 4 wagons was 135mA, in other words to run for 1 hour would need a 135mAh capacity battery. If the loco is not doing anything, just stabled for example, the onboard receiver uses about 15mA per hour. the battery voltage dropped from 4.2V to 3V over the test and the speed dropped from 20mph to 18.5mph. Use per operating session - My Smokey Joes job is to move gypsum wagons to/from a off layout gypsum mine and there is a fictional steep gradient up from the mine. Full wagons are restricted to 3 which must be pushed. Typically the loco can drag 9 empties to the mine and during the rest of the session propels 3 batches of 3 back to the exchange siding. This is about equivalent to about 5 layout circuits taking about 12 minutes and using about 27mAh of battery capacity, say 30mAh. This leaves the 100mAh battery with about 70mAh spare capacity. This means the loco could sit idle for over 4.5 hours plus the 12 minutes running before the receiver cut the power to save the battery. As my operating sessions are 2-3 hours there are no problems. You could even use a smaller 70mAh battery if the loco was not switched on until needed. I remove my batteries for recharging and they are E-flite types with 'UM' connectors. changing the battery for a fresh one should take less than 30 seconds!

You might consider using a battery rather than a supercap. If you are using radio control you have the possibility of using a voltage regulator to ensure a fixed voltage to the receiver both from the track supply and the battery. The receiver than varies the pulse width modulated voltage to the motor using commands from the radio controller. Actually for shunting you might as well just use the battery, less complicated. BlueRail Trains first board, the one I bought for testing, automatically switched between track and battery and it was seamless if you had the same voltage with both. Having an automatic DC/DCC/battery switching system with auto battery charging on powered track is the holy grail of power supplies. All the elements work and it just needs someone to integrate them into a small package.