Crest HO Train Engineer RCC

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I did about 8 hours on the San Diego Model Railroad HO layout this weekend, and the HOTE RC performed well.  It didn't bother anyone, no interference issues.  The DC is fairly clean there at the 11-12v range, and that's the throttle setting I ran at in each power district.  I had about a 20ft range.  Since the club's rule is you have to stay with your train, the range was more than enough.  I didn't get to check out the RC on DCC, but I don't foresee a problem, and actually should provide a cleaner voltage to my receiver cause of the higher frequency of the DCC.  I have to wait till I can run with a DCC group. The 75mHz of the HOTE turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  The SDMRRC DCC system is NCE, and they haven't been able to run the wireless cabs/controls cause it interferes with the large scale wireless across the hall.  I was told that the FCC set a one frequency use for all DCC wireless.  It doesn't make sense when direct RC can be 45m, 75m, 900m, 2.4g, etc.  Oh well, that's the way it is, and until someone figures out how to get around it, it's wire for DCC on the San Diego Arizona Eastern.

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Here's some pics.  For definition, I waited till after I shot the photos to paint the tether connectors and wires.  They got flat black.

Having fun now. 

DC

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I installed the Crest HO Train Engineer CRE55000 in my P2K E8 set, but not exactly like it was intended.  The issue was interference.  Once the receiver started delivering current to the motor, I lost all control - runaway.  By filtering, rerouting wires/components and shielding, I was able to maintain stop, direction and light on/off control, bit still had problems with speed control.  If I ran at slow speeds, I had control at a small range.   So I moved the RX board to the dummy B unit and tethered to A's motor.  AWESOME control!    About 15-20ft range.  Smoothest, slowest creeping control I have ever seen.  People can't believe how slow my fully consisted streamliner creeps up my 4% grade.  Crest really nailed the pulse width modulation.  The torque is incredible.  All my lights are on all the time, run or stop.  No flickering or dimming when slowing down.
 

I designed a 2 - micro pin tether that looks like air hoses - no funky plastic plug.  I also designed a bridge/filter/regulator board with 2 jumpers that allows me 3 on-board configurations: regulated 12.4 volts to RX, direct track power to RX and track power to motor with no RX.  This will allow me to run on any 12-18v AC, DC or DCC system.

The HO TE has a great feature they call memory.  If power is lost to the board,  the loco picks up at the last speed and direction when power is restored.  It does pretty good (like DC) on a dirty track.

The other issue I was concerned about was heat.  The little CRE55001 board gets pretty warm.  I just propped open the front and rear doors on the B unit, and it is running much cooler.

The big downside is discontinuance of the product.   Walthers is already discontinuing it when sold out.  I can easily see why this RCC didn't catch on if everyone was having the same problems/issues that I did.   To bad Crest didn't follow through and address the communications issues.  I just bought another new/sealed CRE55000 on Ebay for $60.  Got a spare.  The other downside is that it would take 4 cars/locos and a bunch of tethering to do a 2 unit lash-up.

Instead of getting into a bunch of details here, I am planning to write a paper/article on it and put it on my website.  I'll take a couple of pics in the next day or so for everyone and post them here later.

My next electrical project is to install a radio controlled sound system in my 2nd B unit using the Crest HO TE.  I have 2 more RX boards right now; a third when my Ebay item gets here. I can then program/control it with another channel of my Crest TX.  Therefore, I'm thinking about the Quantum Revolution since it has DC capability.  The QR is on my Christmas list.

DC

http://uphonation.com