Garden Railway Forum

As I alluded to in a post before Christmas the Current Mrs Big Jim was quite enthusiastic regarding an engine for the Son and Heir that was slightly larger than 16mm scale. Well a chance conversation has led to the acquisition of this.....








A five inch gauge 'Gronk' (BR class 08)

Like all PMR engines it needs TLC (and possibly an exorcism)

I like a class 08, is this electric?

Yes, 24v battery power.

A little beauty Jim, congratulations. I wonder if 'Big Jim Jnr.' will get much opportunity to play?

Nice one Jim, scale diesels can look good. At 24 volt should pull like er! well a train, long as it's not geared for sonic speeds.
Grant.

That does look like fun. It actually looks very workmanlike - the 'weathering' looks totally authentic.
Does it need a crane to lift on and off the track and into the car, or can it be man-handled?

Rik

With out the batteries, it is quite easy to lift. I would have a guess at around 2st for the loco and about the same for each battery. Fully fitted up about 3/4 cwt.

It is very nicely made, if rather old. I believe it to be a Blackgates Engineering Charlatan. It does need a bit of work, one of the cranks is loose and one of the wheels needs pinning on its axle. A re wire wouldn't go amiss either.

I need to have a good look over it and decide what to do. As it is for the boy I need it to be safe and suitable. Temporary skirts might not be a bad idea to stop the poking of fingers into working parts, a fail-safe deadman system will also be added. This, I think will take the form of a separate controller on a flying lead that is large enough to need to be held in two (small) hands. Two small paddles either side will mean that both hands have to be on the 'throttle' at all times for it to move and a tilt switch to kill the juice if it goes over.

I did think about Deltang RC for it but I think the motors and the voltage would prove to much (unless anyone has any ideas).

Ideally I wanted a small NG outline 4w loco, but beggars can't be choosers. This would have meant a larger body to contain bigger batteries. The down side of a scale model in this size is getting large enough cells into a small space for a good length of run. I have found a pair of 36Ah AGM batteries that will hopefully give a continual run time of about 5hs. Ordinary car batteries would have been slightly cheaper but don't like deep discharge. The other advantage of AGM is that there is no worries with acid leaks should the worst happen and it tips over. I did wonder about building a LiPo pack for it but decided life is too short and the weight provided by the AGM batteries will give a bit of well needed ballast.

I do rather like the scruffy appearance of the engine so it may stay it that colour. However, I am rather fond the livery that was applied to the two engines that were on the LMR, we shall see.

Topless pictures

Big Jim wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:55 am I did think about Deltang RC for it but I think the motors and the voltage would prove to much (unless anyone has any ideas).

Hi Jim
You could always use an Rx102 with something like an MTroniks ESC - they can handle up to 10A. Alternatively, if the current draw is more there are 40A and even 320A ESCs on eBay - eg http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282647707653 - though these are restricted to 16v max

Rik
PS - MTroniks do a 24v 20A ESC - http://www.mtroniks.net/prod/Boat-Speed ... _20_HV.htm

Jimbo, MTroniks seems to be the choice for larger stuff as I have seen 5" locos running with this gear.

Funnily enough I was looking at M'tronics website earlier. I think I will be going down this route for the speed controller.
This is what is currently fitted, I understand it works okay but does get a little warm.
4x 60w motors, wired in parallel as series pairs. I am given to understand that the stall current is 4.4 amps per motor. I assume that this would mean a maxim of 17 amps.

I think a call to M'tronics might be in order to work out exactly what is required.

I agree with others Jim, that looks a lot of fun. Do you have your own track or will you need to take it to a club.

Brilliant find though and wishing.........

It will be used at the local club track.
I haven't even got a 16mm line at the moment.

I know it’s not ideal, but do you not have enough room for say an end to end Jim, at least you can run something whenever you like.

It would be nice but I won't be in this house for much longer and the garden really isn't big enough.
The local MES is less than a mile away and i have keys so at the moment there is no real point.

I have heard a few rumours about where my next post will be and one of them has accommodation with a lovely large and flat garden (over an acre) plus sheds and out buildings.

We shall see what happens.

Any chance you can R/C this Jim?

As much as I admire the engineering of larger scale stuff I personally could not be hunched over one of these driving it all day.

I am looking at doing this. My joints won't take sitting on a small riding truck for long, I tend to drive the 7 1/4" stuff at the club as it is sit in rather than sit on and our big petrol hydrolic is quite comfortable.

I think initially a hand control on a flying lead should do the trick.

It is really is for the son and heir to play with so I don't think I will be using it much anyway.

The batteries arrived today and I will try and get them installed tommorow.

I do fancy going to town on the detailing on it. It always surprises me that a lot of ME sized battery/ic locos are very crude in their detailing.

Big Jim wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:34 pm It always surprises me that a lot of ME sized battery/ic locos are very crude in their detailing.

Totally agree with you there Jim, and may be some of the reason they are somewhat scorned by the steam builders. A scale model diesel with good detail can look very good, but not quick to build which may be why many lack detail.
Grant.

Hope everything goes well for you Jim.

Just a note on controllers, most battery locos at my club are running 120 Amp controllers some are larger still.