Battery diesel RC speed controller/sound card gizmo??

[Mrs F Controller]

Hope someone can help... Have been posting in 'off topic' about problems with my railbus. Have now decided to take the wiring apart as to be honest it doesn't make sense even though I did it! I have never liked the sound card anyway and the speed controller shad never worked very well so Mr F C reminded me that we had a visitor to an open day with a 'diesel' that had a RC gizmo which although looked basic acted as speed controller and the sound card worked in conjunction with the speed of the motor. It was only small handset but I think it might do well for my railbus. Does anyone have any idea who makes one and where I can get it? Sorry to sound so vague.

We are getting a strange things happening when I put the meter on one of the battery terminals as it read 5.5v even though the battery wasn't there and then it visibly dropped voltage as I watched it. So I thought this obviously has to do with the speed controller but when I turned that nothing happened!?

[Mrs F Controller]

Just realised a photo I posted in off topic about this had a bit cut off so here it is again if its any help!

[tom_tom_go]

Might be Cliff Barker controller with mylocosound soundcard?

[GTB]

We are getting a strange things happening when I put the meter on one of the battery terminals as it read 5.5v even though the battery wasn't there and then it visibly dropped voltage as I watched it.

Sounds like there is a fairly large capacitor on the input side of the speed control board and/or the sound board, which has retained a charge when the battery was disconnected. Multimeters have a high input resistance as part of their circuit and as you've taken the reading the meter has slowly discharged the capacitor.

Timpdon Electronics have a battery loco r/c system with a small control box which may be what you've seen. I think Andel use a variant of it in their rtr locos.

http://timpdon.co.uk/timpdon/telec/prod ... ts_urc.php

Cliff Barker also has a couple of similar systems, one using a key fob control box and one with a larger control box.

http://www.cliffbarker.talktalk.net/spe ... oller.html

Regards,
Graeme

[Mrs F Controller]

Thanks for the help guys! I have looked at the Timpdon website and although it looks quite simple I haven't got a clue other than realising you need a transmitter and receiver! So tried ringing them to no avail and now when I emailed them it said there was an error! then read another post about how to wire up a radio speed controller and sound card and that was by Chuffed2bits. Anyone know if that would be good for me??

[Chris Cairns]

I would have a careful look & test of those slide DPDT switches that are being used.

The cheap versions of these are well known to fail in the R/C world.

I do not have access to the circuit diagram for the manual IP Engineering speed controller being used here (and a request by another member here on the Forum failed to get one either) but I cannot see the transistor that IP Eng supply with the kit - another component to check if it is fitted to your railbus.

Chris Cairns.

[Mrs F Controller]

I would have a careful look & test of those slide DPDT switches that are being used.

The cheap versions of these are well known to fail in the R/C world.

I do not have access to the circuit diagram for the manual IP Engineering speed controller being used here (and a request by another member here on the Forum failed to get one either) but I cannot see the transistor that IP Eng supply with the kit - another component to check if it is fitted to your railbus.

Chris Cairns.

Yes we have tested the switches already and they aren't putting out the sort of reading expected! Having said that it was working before very well and just suddenly failed! I did all the original soldering and wiring and I must have had a wiring diagram in the first place but its long gone! I have come to the conclusion that I am going to rip it all out and try and get a RC unit cos I would also prefer a better soundcard too.

[Chris Cairns]

Yup that is what happens in the R/C world - your pride & joy is half way through an inverted spin when the cheap power switch fails, your controls go to the fail safe position which means it will not recover from the spin and it now ends up buried in the ground.

I do not have any experience of the Ground Mode 2.4 GHz (I'm still using 27 MHz for my car, boats & railway, but have experience of the Aircraft/Helicopter 2.4 GHz) so hopefully another member can help you there further.

Chris Cairns.

[Mrs F Controller]

Err Chris, think we've got our wires crossed ( pardon the pun) as I haven't already got RC I want to convert it to RC!

The thing is what I can't understand it was working perfectly and then when I went to turn the speed controller to bring it to a halt it stopped and hasn't worked since! What I haven't mentioned is that I got a 'shock' from it or so I thought, I was actually touching the electric fence at the same time and it was coming from me! Did I burn something out perhaps? I know the chip for the speed controller was very delicate when I soldered it I had to use heat sinks? Possible?

[Chris Cairns]

No wires crossed here. I picked up that you wished to convert to R/C but there can be different versions used for ground & airborne models in 2.4 Ghz (different modulations) so I cannot advise which ground mode 2.4 GHZ system to use as I have no experience of these. One advantage with 2.4 GHz is you can have one transmitter with details, etc. stored for several models thus just requiring separate receivers for each model. So you then need to decide how many channels you may want to use, plus all the other fancy "bells & whistles, etc", and get the best transmitter that will fit your requirements. That is what I did for my aircraft and helicopters, but I would need to get a conversion kit (not sure if they are still available from the UK distributor) to change the operation of one channel (stick control) so I could use this transmitter with cars, boats & trains.

As to your electric fence shock it is very possible that it affected the transistor, as you have proved the motor runs direct from the battery. You can easily check out if the rotary potentiometer is still working, so it would be cheap enough to pick up some replacement components (Maplin, RS Components, eBay, etc.) to at least get your railbus running again whilst you contemplate the options for Radio Control, Electronic Speed Controllers & Soundcards.

Chris Cairns.