gregh
electronics, computers and scratchbuilding
Quite a few years ago my wife gave me an Aristocraft Li’l Critter loco.
I decided To bash it into a small dual hood. In NSW we had a shunting ‘tractor’ called an X200 class – looked like this, and I wanted something like it.
The original critter has a small ‘front’ hood that’s not visible in my pic, but I reused it and built the new sides and top, and shortened the original ‘long’ hood. Here’s the result.
The original hood is on the right and my creation on the left. (it’s not really bowed – the camera lens does that.) The rounded tops of the hood are done by building a square box from 1.5mm styrene, then building up inside the corners with lots of styrene strips and MEK, then using a bench grinder for the initial 45 degree shaping, and then a file and sandpaper for finishing. (styrene is great stuff to use on a bench grinder – just rips right through it and the swarf snaps off clean as a whistle (once it’s cooled. It’s best to use a coarse wheel rather than smooth.
Then I decided to put some of the new 2.4 GHz radio control into it. I fitted 4, NiMH AA cells in each hood. One end also has the speed controller (ESC), receiver and reversing servo. The other end has the sound board and 3” speaker facing into the cab. It was a bit of a squeeze, but here’s a poor pic of how it looks inside. (I am not the tidiest wirer!)
The batteries are covered by a sheet of (white) styrene, then the Rx, servo and ESC are hot glued onto it. (left of pic). The aerial is just tucked in wherever it will go and it still works OK ! There is a switch to allow it to work from track power as it is my ‘testing’ loco for track power. The red wording says “ track/RC switch under”.
The sound system is my own design using a Picaxe microcontroller, and doesn’t really sound that realistic, but any sound is better than none in my book.
I decided To bash it into a small dual hood. In NSW we had a shunting ‘tractor’ called an X200 class – looked like this, and I wanted something like it.
The original critter has a small ‘front’ hood that’s not visible in my pic, but I reused it and built the new sides and top, and shortened the original ‘long’ hood. Here’s the result.
The original hood is on the right and my creation on the left. (it’s not really bowed – the camera lens does that.) The rounded tops of the hood are done by building a square box from 1.5mm styrene, then building up inside the corners with lots of styrene strips and MEK, then using a bench grinder for the initial 45 degree shaping, and then a file and sandpaper for finishing. (styrene is great stuff to use on a bench grinder – just rips right through it and the swarf snaps off clean as a whistle (once it’s cooled. It’s best to use a coarse wheel rather than smooth.
Then I decided to put some of the new 2.4 GHz radio control into it. I fitted 4, NiMH AA cells in each hood. One end also has the speed controller (ESC), receiver and reversing servo. The other end has the sound board and 3” speaker facing into the cab. It was a bit of a squeeze, but here’s a poor pic of how it looks inside. (I am not the tidiest wirer!)
The batteries are covered by a sheet of (white) styrene, then the Rx, servo and ESC are hot glued onto it. (left of pic). The aerial is just tucked in wherever it will go and it still works OK ! There is a switch to allow it to work from track power as it is my ‘testing’ loco for track power. The red wording says “ track/RC switch under”.
The sound system is my own design using a Picaxe microcontroller, and doesn’t really sound that realistic, but any sound is better than none in my book.
Ours definately had two equal length hoods.