Radio Control for HO

[Guilford Guy]

Aw rich, you didnt catch me- I = Club President, having been elected a couple years ago...
Our layout is so small I can often find a corner chair by a station on run passenger equipment, and hope that it won't derail on the "kiddie twackage."
The system is pretty straight-forwards, and the "momentum" make operations a lot more pleasant without kids going stop+go...

[Yampa Bob]

Sheldon
Between my other projects, I have been trying to follow this thread.  I just have a 4 X 8 double track, but it would be great to sit back in my easy chair and use the wireless.  If I can qualify for a power chair, (Hovaround or Scooter), I could follow the trains around the layout.

Would you please give me a link or two for just the basic "starter" set for the Aristo TE.   I was also wondering about the type antenna connector, is it a BNC? and what is the frequency?  There is a company that makes all types of "rubber duck" antennas, down to a very short one used for UHF.

Bob

[Atlantic Central]

Bob,

Aristo Craft and the Train Engineer products can be found at www.aristocraft.com, but their site gives only basic info about the product and much of that is geared toward large scale not HO or other smaller scales.

Basicly, as it comes out of the box, the Train Engineer is just a throttle system - a wireless transmitter and a reciever. The reciever is basicly just the speed controller and requires a power supply suitable for the scale and type of train you are running. So with a suitable power supply, one reciever/transmitter setup is just like one train set "power pack" except it is wireless and it provides very good control by using pluse width modulation.

The transmitter uses buttons - fast, slow, east, west, emergency stop, to control the train. The reciever stays at the last direction and voltage until a new command is sent by pushing the buttons. There are 10 channels on 10 frequencies, giving 100 independent trains that could be controled at once. Any transmitter and reciever can be easily programed to any of the 100 combinations and the channels can be switched within a given frequency with the touch of one button.

So for large scale you want more volts and amps then you need for HO. The TE will handle 24 volts at 10 amps for large scale but I use a 13.8 volt, 3 amp power supply for my HO application.

The real heart of what I am doing is in the layout wiring - adapting "block control" wiring to take full advantage of the walk around wireless control offered by the Train Engineer.

For a small layout, depending on how many trains you are trying to run at once, you may not really need a complex block control system. The Train Engineer can simply replace any fixed conventional throttles you are using now, and it may be able to use them as a power supply.

As for the antenna, no it does not have a BNC, it has a very simple screw in type like an old protable radio. To install the Aristo rubber duckie you remove a small bracket and the end of the antenna has a loop that is held directly on to the circuit board with a screw.

So commercial rubber duckies will not fit. I made my shorter version from a 1/4" diameter spring and some heat shrink tubing.

Hope this helps, let me know if you need more info. Complete documentation of what I am doing will be available in the next month or two.

Sheldon

[Yampa Bob]

Thanks for the link.  If not too expensive I would like a very basic setup to run one or two locos.  If I put one on an isolated siding, then I would only be running one at a time. 

I'll look into it and check back if I have more questions. 

Bob

[grumpy]

Bob
I just purchased one and the cost was about $120.00. My plan is to use it for my garden railway one train at a time . I have yet to experiment with it but my complaint so far is that it is quite bulky. If I can have a good day I hope to try it on the dc portion of my layout. Haven't had too many good days lately.
Don

[Yampa Bob]

GG, I just had to comment on the first picture you posted.  The small boy is mesmerized, the guy behind him is thinking "How can I get all this and that new washing machine", and the woman behind him is thinking "Well, there goes my new washer"   

Bob

[Atlantic Central]

Grumpy,

Bulky? Are you refering to the transmitter? Myself, and those involed with me in the development of my system actually like the fact that the buttoms on the the transmitter are few and large as opposed to tiny and many like most DCC handhelds.

It is no bigger than the Digitrax or NEC throttles and the large buttons are arranged and shaped in a fashion that allows using it without looking at the remote once you become acustom to it. 

One recommendation, remove the belt clip from the back. The unit will seem much nicer than. And, as I have been discussing, we have been working on making the antenna smaller for indor use. But in truth, the Aristo rubbr duckie or even the rigid antenna not extended are really not that bad.

Yampa Bob,

One reciever/transmitter set retails for about $200, but with good shopping they can be found in the $120 to $150 dollar range. wiring to do as you discribe would be very simple and could be connected to the action of the turnouts reducing the number of control switches needed. For HO I found nice 13.8 volt power supplies for under $25.00 each.

You do need a power supply for each unit if you intend you use multiple throttles on the same layout. My layout will have 8 throttles, one other we are converting to the system will have 6.

I'll would be happy to send you a simple schematic for what you discribe.

Sheldon

[grumpy]

Sheldon
What I was referring to was the fact that three units were needed to run the system . Although the hand held is wireless the other two pieces have to be installed somewhere and will require quite a bit of room in some cases.If you have any other suggestion to make start-up easier please let me know.
Don

[Atlantic Central]

Don,

Usually large scale modelers mount the power supply and the reciever on/in some sort of board, often covered by a model building, that can be easily disconnected and taken inside when not in use. Or the reciever is placed in a shed or other structure near the outdoor track.

For indoor use we simply mount the reciever and power supply under the layout somewhere.

I use a 13.8 power supply made by Pyramid for powering CB radios and the like and I mount the reciever right to the top of the power supply making it a nice compact unit.

Large scale requires higher voltages and the power supplies are a little bigger.

Sheldon 

[Guilford Guy]

If you could compress al the electronics into a very small board, that could fit in a B unit, and put a 9v battery hooked up to the power-pack leads. You could have a remote control AB set... I know Aristo marketed an HO Train-Engineer, but it wasn't successful, and I am not sure how exactly it operated...

[grumpy]

Sheldon
I am using a MRC  Trainpower 6200. I t will supply 18.5 V DC for my G sale or 14.0 V DC for my HO plus it has the AC power for accessories. I purchase the unit for  it's versatility.I have other power supplies I can use but chose to use this one.The disadvantage  to the unit is its size. The prime purpose was to power my G scale. I am sort of like Bob wondering if I will have time to finish my projects.
Don

[Jim Banner]

Grumpy, I picked up a used  Aristo-Craft (Crest) Train Engineer  transmitter and track receiver last year for a very good price.  I stuffed the receiver, along with some batteries, into a Bachmann large scale reefer.  Then I modified a couple of locomotives so that plugging in a jumper would cut out the motors from their normal connection and reconnect them to the receiver in the reefer.  Now I can run battery/radio control on one train and normal control on another. 

It would be very easy to add another jack to the reefer to cut out the batteries and reconnect the input of the receiver to a line powered dc supply instead.  This would make it possible to set the reefer under an H0 layout, plug in a couple of plugs, and run a train using the TE transmitter.  Just something for you to think about.

[Atlantic Central]

Update:

Block control circuit board cards are expected soon, Train Engineer power supplies and recievers are all on hand and have been assembled and wired into units for both my layout and the other layout that will be converted to the system.

Testing is complete on smaller, indoor friendly rubber duckie antenna and all 14 transmitters will be converted to them in the next few days. Range of well over 125' has been obtained even with a short  4" antenna.

Those of you who have contacted me off the board, I will be in touch soon with more info. Things are finially slowing down a little with my other businesses.

Sheldon

[Atlantic Central]

Update:

Well things are still busy here dispite my best efforts to the contrary - so the documentation of the control system is still not complete - but is progressing.

The block control relay cards are ready and on hand, so if anyone is intersted we can now build the system and are begining to convert our first layout.

In addition to those parts needed for this first layout conversion and for my layout, I have enough boards on hand for several more average sized layouts.

Testing of the Aristo Craft accessory reciever shows very limited uses in this application - so anyone interested in using this type of system and desiring to control sound, you should consider the RCS throttle rather than the Aristo Train Engineer. The RCS throttle comes in a sound loco friendly version and will work the same as the Train Engineer with my block selector.

The upcoming growth in popularity of DC sound equiped locos and the availablity of my system may prompt Aristo to look at a sound control module, but that remains to be seen.

Sheldon

[Atlantic Central]

Update:

Well, it has been a while but we have been busy here. The lighted pushbuttons have finally arrived and conversion of our first layout should begin this week.

Continued testing has proven the reliablity and consistancy of all earlier findings and one improvement. The TE has built in momentum settings. I had conducted limited tests with them up til now since I had never been a fan of momentum. Further testing has shown even better performance from vertually all locos with the first (least amount) momentum setting rather than the no momentum setting. Little if any change in operational feel but a noticable improvement in slow starts, which where allready great with most locos.

More to come as we get this first layout converted.

Sheldon