radio control loco's

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2 replies

altterrain

Member since
October 2006
From: silver spring, md
1,232 posts

Posted by altterrain on Friday, January 25, 2008 11:57 AM

One of the popular and less expensive ways to start in the hobby with battery/RC is the use of a trailer car. A trailer car can be used with multiple locomotives. Many adapt AristoCraft's Train Engineer trackside receiver for this purpose. I did one but late last fall so I have not had a chance to play with it much. Including batteries, wires and such it can be done for about $200. A good site for doing this is - http://ovgrs.org/ (go to Battery Power then scroll down to the Power Car sections). I also have a trailer car I did with a RCS system which ran about $300 ($80 of that is the transmitter which is a one time purchase). The RCS system is far more responsive than the TE and the transmitter is tiny compared to the big walkie talkie TE transmitter.

-Brian

President of

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altterrain

Member since
October 2006
From: silver spring, md
1,232 posts

Posted by altterrain on Friday, January 25, 2008 11:37 AM

The differences between toy and large scale train RC systems are -

Wattage rating - Large scale trains have multiple 24 volt motors sucking up a lot of amps. Toy trains have a small 9 volt motor that can only pull a light load.
Fine speed motor control - Toy trains are seldom asked to creep along at prototypic slow speeds. This is a must for running operations.
Range - Toy trains transmitters usually have a pretty limited range
Multiple channels - You can only run one loco from a toy transmitter. I can run something like 24 loco from my RCS transmitter.
Multiple functions - I have the ability to trigger sound functions (bell, whistle) if my loco is so equipped.

Basically, you pay for what you get.

-Brian

President of