Wireless controller

[jpfritz]

I set out to build a garden railway.

I acquired three Bachman sets on Facebook and successfully converted one of them to a wireless, remote power controller because I read somewhere that it would be better for outdoor use. But on these forums I see little discussion of this method.

Should my outdoor layout use track power or onBoard power?

[Phil.P]

There is no 'right' answer to that..

What do you want to run? - Live steam, electric.
What prototype do you want to model? - What is available.
Do you want to have / add sound?

How old / agile are you?

How much disposable income do you have for your hobby?

All the above will affect what is 'right' for you.

Phil.P

[philipy]

I can't argue with anything that Phil has just said. However, as a generalisation, very few garden railway modellers use track power these days. The problems of keeping the rails electrically clean so that you get reliable electrical pickup from the wheels makes a running session into a major chore. Plus there can be significant issues with voltage drop, depending on how long the run is.
So, without knowing your specific answers to Phil's questions, I'd still say that R/C control of on board batteries is the way to go.

There are many threads on here about using this type of system, for both commercial and home-made approaches, you only have to use the search function. However, you could start with looking at Rik's "Peckforton" blog, which he has been writing for over 20 years with literally hundreds of entries detailing his problems and successes.
https://riksrailway.blogspot.com/p/contents.html

Most of it he has summarised on this forum as well.

If you want answers to anything specific, please feel free to ask, somebody is almost certain to have an answer.

Welcome to the forum by the way!

[jpfritz]

Fantastic! It looks like I'm in the right place.

I am starting out electric. I converted one of the Bachmans with a RailBoss 4 and a MyLocoSound Premium (good choices?)

I am just finishing the prep work on a kidney-shaped outdoor space of approximately 300 sq ft. It will be leveled with packed clean fill and I'll have power, irrigation and drainage. There is a large tree slightly off-center in the space.

I've used AnyRail to create layout that's just a big loop with two smaller inner loops with manual switches, about 90 feet of track. I have no track instaIled yet but have acquired all that I will need to start. I have some small gravel that should work for the track bed. I have track clips, but I'm wondering if I should somehow be anchoring the track down (through the gravel?) to keep it steady.

All this is happening in central Florida, USA. I'm 65 and fit and I can spend whatever I need to on this hobby. Many years ago I spent about five years as an RC airplane enthusiast so I'm comfortable tinkering with models and such.

My very short term goal is to get this all put together and running ASAP as we have grandkids coming for Thanksgiving. My wife is taking care of the scenery and we have some scale models and some not so scale xmas village stuff.

Long term, I would like to do something much more sophisticated. Electric switching for example (will my RailBoss controller talk to a switch?).

I would like to have a big industrial electric-diesel style loco or maybe a 40's era passenger loco. Do those models come with RC power?

I'll check the blog and this forum, but appreciate any comments you may have on my plans.

Thanks,
J

[GAP]

In a previous on the ground layout I used house bricks buried in the dirt sitting slightly proud of the soil.
I used some wire tent pegs that I cut the majority of the hook section off and the small piece I flattened with a hammer, I then drilled a hole in the sleeper and pushed/hammered the peg into the ground (they were about 250mm long). This held the track down ad as it was sitting on the bricks there was room underneath it this space I filled with gravel for ballast look. I did put weed mat under the track for weed control (the occasional spray with weed killer kept everything neat). This worked well for a good number of years until I pulled it up and moved when I retired.

I started out with battery right from the start as I came from HO and track cleaning was just a chore that took away the enjoyment.

[philipy]

You mentioned using fine gravel as a trackbase/ballast. Nothing wrong with that in principle but you will need some means of keeping it in place. Without maybe side boards of some sort, or a trench or gluing in some way, you will be surprised at how quickly the birds, insects, wildlife, and Mother Nature, work together to scatter it.

One fixative favorite of a lot of members on here is "SBR" ( Styrene Butadiene Co-polymer Latex ). It's a construction product actually intended to improve concrete in several ways but is also very useful for fixing ballast in place for our purposes. There are several brands in the UK who sell it in 5 litre cans but I have no idea what it is sold as in the USA. Peter Butler pioneered it's use for us some years ago, and if you do a search for SBR on here you'll find a quite few references to using it.

For your choice of equipment, personally I have no working knowledge of RailBoss so can't help with that, but MyLocoSound is very good and is used by a lot of people who want sound - although not everyone does of course.

[David P]

Hi jpfritz.

as you are in the US I suggest you look at CVP Airwire as a system - I've converted three Bachmann Fn3 (1:20.3) locomotives (three-truck Shay, Mallet and a Consolidation) using this system with ESU 5XL decoders and custom LiIon batteries. (Only five more to go.........)

I use the ESU decoders as I can custom load the sound files from ESU's library and can change whistles, bells, pumps etc. to suit my requirements (I also use ESU in my 1:48 exhibition work)

Outside the US you have to purchase the remote controllers from a dealer but you can purchase other components direct from CVP.

The controller is very similar to an NCE Powercab in terms of functionality and does not have to "bind" to a receiver - you select the DCC address you have set in the decoder and drive the locomotive like you would on DCC track power. Swapping locos is as simple as selecting the DCC address.

Advantage other than not having to deal with dirty rails is you can follow the engine - whereas if you are running off track power and you are following the train and something goes wrong you have to run back to the fixed control point. Our club track is a dogbone around a building with both ends out of site of the master control point - all very well until something goes wrong and you have to run if on track power!

Another advantage is you can run more than one engine at a time if the track is only DC powered and/or with live steam locomotives (that normally don't have insulated wheels).

These are two of the engines - both will run all day on one battery charge:

Shay & Mallet at AMRA.jpg (4.93 MiB) Viewed 1297 times

I also run live steam using Fosworks radio control systems - if I had started with this first I probably would have also used Fosworks for electric " dead rail" conversions.

If you are interested in a schematic as to how to wire up one of these systems I can provide several - one where the motherboard is completely bypassed/removed and one where the Bachmann multipin socket on the motherboard is used.

Cheers,

[jpfritz]

Very interesting, thanks.

How come running on battery/wireless requires converting a track-powered unit?

Don't any of the manufacturers sell battery/wireless locos?

J

[ge_rik]

Very interesting, thanks.

How come running on battery/wireless requires converting a track-powered unit?

Don't any of the manufacturers sell battery/wireless locos?

J

There are a few. Roundhouse produce some ready to run diesels
https://roundhouse-eng.com/dieselseries.htm

Piko have a couple of RTR g scale locos
https://www.onlytrains.com/model/railroad/FL-Batt.html

Or there are several suppliers of kits for battery locos
https://www.ipenginnering.com/

https://hglw.co.uk/Locos.html

https://philsharples.com/

http://www.swiftsixteen.com/

https://www.pdf-models.co.uk/

Rik