RC/Battery O Scale possibilities

[train18393]

Let me start by saying I am an ardent HO model railroader. I have a Digitrax Super Chief with boosters on my fairly large for HO layout. I also have a 1/4" scale USRA Mikado 3 rail engine and several HI Rail cars to go with it. The motor is a fairly low current can motor, usually drawing consderably less than 1/2 amp. I only use this at Christmas time around the living room. What are the chanches of fitting the tender with a rechargable battery and RC controlls so I can dispense with having to run the thing from my MRC DC power pack?

The crux of the question is this: Is the available battery/RC equipment small enough to fit inside an O Scale steam engine tender? I wouldn't have a problem making the first car the battery pack. Do you think this would this give a resonable amount of running time? What manufactures produce RC equipment and batteries that are easily adaptable to model railroad use, or is there a manufacture out there that produces a ready made kit? Sound would be nice also, at least steam chuff  and a whistle.

Thanks for your consideration to this uneducated (about the bigger equipment) HO model railroader.

Paul

[kstrong]

Shouldn't have any trouble with any of the major R/C suppliers--RCS, Airwire, Aristo-Craft, Locolink, etc. There are a few threads in this forum extolling the virtues of each system. All of the components for these systems are quite small, and should have no trouble fitting inside an O-scale tender. Depending on the size of the tender, you may even be able to fit a small Lithium-Ion battery pack in. Otherwise, a trail car would be fine.

Run time will be dependent on the rating of the battery. If the motor draws 1/2 amp, and you've got a 2-amp/hour battery, you can expect to get around 4 hours of running out of the batteries. Not too shabby, really. I typically get between 2 and 3 hours running on my large scale locos running 2.5 amp/hour batteries.

This is going to sound a bit dumb, but you're sure the 3-rail loco's running on DC? It's been a while since I delved into 3-rail O-scale, but I've always thought they ran on AC, even the new digital-command stuff. (Note that if you go to R/C, you would lose much of that digital command functionality.) Please correct me if I'm wrong. The Lionel and MTH web sites make no mention that I can quickly find that reference power needs.

Later,

K

[FJ and G]

You can easily fit all components. I'm building a very small O gauge switcher and here's the guts. Note the humongous battery. ESC is from a motorboat as is the X-mitter/receiver

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcu4zC4Xo3k 

[izzy0855]

Check out www.cordlessrenovations.com  They build custom battery-packs with high capacity cells for tight places.