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Radio controlled road vehicles on Upper Benllech


otherplanet
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I have now got the servo up and running. Other than minor trimming to the bearing mount for the potentiometer. It went together as planned. Its essentially the servo end of the model T chassis. But with improvements to clearances around the gears and the new potentiometer mounting arrangement.

 

Edited by otherplanet
Correction of grammatical typo
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  • 3 months later...

Giles' recent traction engine video has spurred me on to getting the Dennis finally rolling.

Its just a trial run to make sure everything works Ok before assembly of everything else makes it harder to fiddle with.

still lots to do.

The reciever battery combo in the back is my prototyping setup, the final system should be a little smaller and neater.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

New toys arrived today from Shenzen. I'm not sure what I will use them on yet but the opportunities are obvious. (I do have a couple of thoughts though)

1x3x1 bearings, yes. 3mm outside diameter, 1mm ID and 1mm wide. 

Pack of 60 for a few quid. A quick test and they keep spinning when you flick them  so should help to reduce the friction in the drive systems.

DSC_3845.JPG

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On 31/05/2019 at 22:31, otherplanet said:

New toys arrived today from Shenzen. I'm not sure what I will use them on yet but the opportunities are obvious. (I do have a couple of thoughts though)

1x3x1 bearings, yes. 3mm outside diameter, 1mm ID and 1mm wide. 

Nice. Do you have a link to the supplier?

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  • 5 weeks later...

I have managed to get the first decent shots from the micro video camera. The problems turned out to be a camera with the wrong format. 

I was sent the default Pal format as that is normal for the UK, but since the decoding is happening on a smart phone, and all smart phones are NTSC, it didn't know what to do with the signal.

Image taken from cab of the Dennis, wirelessly transmitted to a phone.2019-07-09-22-22-27.jpg.dff2f0bf73e0f3bfcbb8e4ed2fd2821a.jpg

The camera is 800Tvl so a bit grainy for photos and colour is a bit poor. But it looks great through the head set.

The transmitter consumes a hefty 380ma at low power seeing, so it's going to need a massive battery to get half way decent run time. 

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On 03/07/2017 at 21:39, otherplanet said:

Progress is slowing again, so I'll share this video now, rather than waiting until the bodywork is complete. 

 

 

This is the first running trial, it is nice and slow and I am very happy with the steering lock, although its a little asymetric at the moment. There is too much slop in the front axle,  which I had suspected, it will need some radius arms to keep things better aligned. For reference, its running on a piece of A3 paper.

I havent tried playing with any of the settings yet.

 

Where did you get the Model T body from (is it a kit or scratchbuilt)?

 

For a while I've thought of adding a Model T  'fish delivery' to my 009 Seaside Layout, with two characters calling out "Fre - e- e- esh fi-i-i-i-sh! Caught in the ocean this mo-o-o-o-rning!" 

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7 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Where did you get the Model T body from (is it a kit or scratchbuilt)?

 

For a while I've thought of adding a Model T  'fish delivery' to my 009 Seaside Layout, with two characters calling out "Fre - e- e- esh fi-i-i-i-sh! Caught in the ocean this mo-o-o-o-rning!" 

Its a 1/72 scale WW1 ambulance plastic kit. There is also a similar Vauxhall ambulance model kit in the same scale made by Rodin. Both kits can be found on E-bay.

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39 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Its a 1/72 scale WW1 ambulance plastic kit. There is also a similar Vauxhall ambulance model kit in the same scale made by Rodin. Both kits can be found on E-bay.

The model T is by RPM. To help with the search.

And the Vauxhall is by Roden, with an 'e'.

 

I quite like their D type car as well, will have to try converting one of them at some point

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26 minutes ago, otherplanet said:

The model T is by RPM. To help with the search.

And the Vauxhall is by Roden, with an 'e'.

 

I quite like their D type car as well, will have to try converting one of them at some point

The Vauxhall ambulance is based on the D type. It is better than the model T if you want to use it as a delivery van as the body is plain just like a van.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Progress. Most of the assembly is now complete. The canvas cab, canvas tilt and a few details to add.

The wiring is done for now,  other than shortening the wires for the headlights, which are a little straggly, and making a new battery cable to suit the new, more compact 250mAh battery. _20190731_195339.JPG.97624bf16b2a12bb90485abfb7ec01f4.JPG

 As you can see, the driver has a large bucket on his head, but otherwise it's not too compromised. Once the cab roof is on it will be even less noticeable

I think the transmitter should squash down enough to fit under the canvas tilt.

I had intended to switch the fpv on and off with the Deltang reciever, but couldnt get it to provide 100% duty cycle, instead the slight off pulses of the pwm made the fpv transmitter grumpy. So it is hard wired to the main switch for now.

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Thanks PhilJ. I had noticed that too. Now i'm torn between the WD models and the Roden one. Although buses dont feature highly on the layout requirements, but I wont be able to resist at least one accurate representation of the B type. 

What I really want is an open charabanc. But whilst Oxford diecast claim to have done one in their 1:76 range, the only evidence any where else is in 1:43. And then pricey! I think they were done for a promotion.

 

Shame as the Leyland X type chassis it sits on would be great for commercial vehicles too.

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1 hour ago, otherplanet said:

Thanks PhilJ. I had noticed that too. Now i'm torn between the WD models and the Roden one. Although buses dont feature highly on the layout requirements, but I wont be able to resist at least one accurate representation of the B type. 

What I really want is an open charabanc. But whilst Oxford diecast claim to have done one in their 1:76 range, the only evidence any where else is in 1:43. And then pricey! I think they were done for a promotion.

 

Shame as the Leyland X type chassis it sits on would be great for commercial vehicles too.

Older vehicles are quite small compared to their modern counterparts which means that the scale difference is less noticable, I once saw a B type parked alongside an Optare minibus, the minibus was both longer and wider than the B type and had almost as many seats. Also quite a few B types were converted to lorries.

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Very true, there is a superb youtube video of a b type at some bus convention. It looked like a half sized miniature.

AEC also made quite a lot of trucks for the war department from scratch, based on the chassis design, and exploiting their proven ability to build in volume etc. 

WD models do a version of this too. But I think their Thorneycroft will be next on my christmas list.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Back from various travels over the last few weeks and a little time to get progress on the canvas tilt. The video transmitter is quite large (and hot) so the triangular topped version from the kit had to be replaced. I fitted a set of 2mm x 1mm magnets behind each of the vertical posts. Then a set of hoops made from soft iron wire, which sit nicely on the tips of the magnets. I then draped some Pva soaked rectangles of paper over the top to create the canvas. Still need to add the end sheets. The cab uses the original molding but I have added framework detailing. Just held on by the tight fit for the moment.

The Tx aerial will be doubled back inside the body eventually, the magnets hold it securely but allow removal to access the battery.

DSC_3977.JPG.9650c304fd0500cc82e31cb517a14d9e.JPG

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I sometimes find 7mm fiddely enough - I end up rather gob-smacked at what you achieve in this scale!  Live cameras...........

 

I just hope batteries become more compact before long (not that I'm grumbling - we are extremely fortunate in what we have available to us)

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I spent some time today taking various videos. But suffering slight problems on the editing front after remembering the software was on the old and very dead laptop. 

In the mean time here is an atmospheric still. 

_20190915_214621.JPG.d451a57d5867df8924883f50191667f7.JPG

All together now, just a few detail parts, and some weathering. But before I get it too grubby I want to get some custom decals for the whole fleet. So trying to create the artwork for these.

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Having spent a happy week or two trying things out on the low relief 'film set'. It all seems to work reasonably well. The truck runs well, although the steering is again a little asymetric, with more lock one way than the other. partially because its not quite centered. It also tramps a bit on full lock, but if your not too excessive on the steering, it goes round well.

The top speed is almost exactly 3meters per minute, which equates to a scale 8.5mph. Slightly slower than I had planned, the gear ratio calculations targeted 9.6mph. But this makes for good slow running and given the speed limits at this time of the prototype (12mph I think), perfectly reasonable for in town driving. The battery lasts longer than I expected, but I havent timed a continuous run to see what the limit is.

 

 

The FPV works reasonably well, but is not perfect.

With the headset on, you get very immersed, it quickly feels odd for the view to not move when you turn your head as you forget you are looking at a screen. The pixels are noticeable if you look for them, but normally are unobtrusive. But this is at largely down to the phone i am using in the headset, as it's the boundaries of the screen pixels that stand out. The camera is theoretically higher resolution than the screen, which in headset mode is ½ HD.

There are also some wierd effects when you drive over patterned road surfaces like cobbles, they strobe as the vehicle moves. Much the same way that tv presenters cannot wear stripey clothes on TV.

Depth of field is not bad, things get a bit fuzzy when closer than 4-5cm and its good out to infinity. This camera has a glued in lens, so I can't adjust to get better macro.

The big weakness is the field of view; The very small camera I chose was only available with a 70deg lens. This is fine from the perspective of looking at the layout, it matches fairly well with the area of vision that the fpv goggles presents. You can also drive very well using it, on spacious roads and open yard areas you can easily navigate - not to mention driving round beer glasses on the table at the pub. At least 10 people have given it a try, including non modellers and a 4 year old and all picked it up in a matter of seconds.

But when the obstacles get narrow (<40mm) it becomes noticeably harder than with the experimental camera I did the early trials with on the Atkinson wagon. That had a 120deg field of view and I think if I build another truck I would compromise on a slightly larger camera to get this wider view. Alternatively it is quite common in rc aircraft and drones to mount the camera on gimbals controlled by a gyro on the headset, so that they move as you turn your head. Given the space constraints I think this is going to pushing it in OO but would probably be amazing.

Maybe one for Giles in O.

Incidently, the vertical range of view is actually limited by the truck, in the video you can see the roof at the top and roughly in the middle bottom you can see the bonnet mascot. Just out of sight below this is the line of the dash panel. Given that the camera is on the shoulders of a 6ft driver, the vertical view is, if anything, better than it should be.

 

Overall the resolution and image quality is pretty good, creates a whole new level of experience and gives you the feeling of being shrunk down into the layout and able to wander around.

 

I really rather want to try it on a real layout now.

 

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