R/C musings

[FJ and G]

Winn Erdman, a retired rocket sled scientist, built a Gauge 1 railcar using an RC car (like X-Mod)

He used a "Canned Heat" RC car motor and RC to build a little rail truck. It had two speeds, off and fast so he had to replace the gearing with a worm drive. It now moves along very sedately. If the RC is proportional one might be able to get it down to a reasonable speed.

Here's his work:



The whole idea occurred to me when I looked at the X-Mods R/C cars done by Radio Shack. I examined the car and thought to put flanges on it, but the wheel base iis too wide for O.

Had it been the right size, I believe I could have fashioned an O scale vehicle, tucking the antenna inside the shell. With the popularity of R/C in Wal-Mart cars, trucks and even boats; as well as G-scale stuff, I think that it would be nice to eventually figure out a way to fabricate one in O.

I realize that they wouldn't be for everyone as there are charging issues, radio signal iissues, and other excuses not to use them (like reliable, cheap electric thru track and a host of other reasons people dutifully bring up whenever R/C is mentioned). But I just thought I'd share some of my musings.

[thor]

Me too. In fact I was in the local Shack just now looking at that stuff and thinking the same thing! Good prices too. I wondered if, as is certain, the R/C circuitry is too low powered to handle our sort of power requirements why couldn't it piggyback onto some kind of slave or servo that could source the necessary current? The boards are so small they'd fit almost anywhere, not that I have any desire to build my own command control system, God forbid! But for a standalone working model or a small POW car, why not? Its definitely on the cards for some experimenting. These are great times for electronics, no doubt about that. Mass production has made quite sophisticated systems dirt cheap, it becomes attractive to butcher them for ones own purposes.

[Anonymous]

I just wish someone would make a "G" ready-to-run HIGH Quality (looks wise) engine. Last summer got a Scienific Toys R/C set for the garden. Ran it July-Oct, then under one of my Christmas trees for a month, all with the same batteries! The whole set was only $39.! K-Line had listed a "O" set in their catalog, but it was IR, not RC. Joe

[FJ and G]

In a Garden RR magazine article from Feb 05 (pg 94-96), there's a very innovative 1:15 scale layout built by a guy in Germany (1:15 can also be modeled in O scale using our 3-rail track, by the way). In O scale, that would be about an 18 inch gauge track found at some industrial and mining sites.

Why would someone want to do that in O scale at 1:15?

1. The larger size models are cool (you could kitbash some from G scale)

2. You can better fit the batteries and R/C components in them (tho you also could in 1:48)

3. 1:15 is the approximate scale of many people figures, R/C trucks and cars and boats and other things sold dirt cheap at Wal-Mart and other outlets.

So what this means is that you could take you trains and track outside and run an entire layout with RC, from the trains to the trucks and cars, and if you have a pond, even some boats or barge traffic, along with, perhaps, a helicopter.

Now that would be REAL animation!

[cnw1995]

David, I personally think someday - when batteries get smaller - this will be the way we run our trains. The engine and battery will be in the engine itself. No track wiring. I have that IR-controlled K-Line battery powered GP9 - it's an oversized engine - run on 4 D batteries, with sound, lights, only one speed - fast. I cut it apart to see if I couldn't come up with a smaller engine. Still experimenting with it.

[FJ and G]

Doug,

I'd love to buy one of those models. Are they still selling them?

[Anonymous]

Doug, Do you have to point the IR controller to an exact spot on the engine? My 10 month-old Grandson was able to run my "G" RC. Joe