Radio control of Bachmann Big Hauler

[gregh]

I had an old Big Hauler with very noisy gears, that I bought for spare parts. Recently I found that Bachmann were selling the whole motor block/wheels/gears  etc for only 30USD. So I bought 3 of them on my last trip to US and carried them home in my suitcase.  (more about the plans for the other 2 later.)

So I retained the original body, added the new motor block and put in RC.  I used Hobbyking  2.4kHz gear because it is cheap and good enough for what I want.  It has large model aircraft type stick controllers.  You can see in this pic, I use the one Tx for two locos (#20 and #25).  The speed control is up/down on the right stick. Direction is changed by moving the right stick momentarily to left or right. The left stick only controls volume (momentarily up/down) and on other locos the left/right movement controls whistle, but I didn’t fit to this loco.



Usually I put the batteries in the boiler so the weight is over the driving wheels.  But the large tender meant I could fit everything in the tender easily.
I used  ten, AA,  NiMH, 2200 mAh batteries, soldered together and fitted in as per this pic.


The circuit board in the centre is the Bachmann sound board, which I retained as is.
I then laid all the electronics on a piece of corroflute using hot-glue.  There’s the 2.4 GHz receiver, the speed controller (ESC), one servo which operates a DPDT switch for reversing and another SPDT for headlight control,  and a second servo which operates a SPDT switch so I can control the volume of the chuff.  This all mounts on top of the batteries.




To see detailed info on the servos and how they operate the switches, see my website.
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/satr/2point4GHz.htm

With everything in the tender, I only needed 3 wires between the tender and loco (plus the 2 originals for the wheel cam) -  2 for the motor and 1 wire for the headlight.  I used a standard servo type 3-pin plug socket (Hobbyking again – dirt cheap).  I cut the 2 wires from the pickups to the motor and soldered on the 2 from the ESC/rev sw.


Items for RC:
Transmitter $15
Receiver 10
ESC 5.5
2 servos 7
4 switches 12
8xNiMH cells for Tx 15
10x NiMH cells for loco. 20
Polyswitch ‘fuse’. 5

Adding about 50% for shipping and allowing half the Tx cost as it is shared, the whole RC cost about  110AUD  or 70GBP.


Here’s the circuit….

 

[tramcar trev]

Very interesting..... I have no qualms re the elcheapo Hobby King stuff. Maybe if I was flying an expensive aircraft maybe I'd opt for something better but for 2 dimensional work they seem robust enough. Have you considered doing what I did and repackaging them in a box? You can easily set them up with knobs, switches whatever you want for a custom control box that will be the envy of all your friends.

 

[Dtsteam]

Well I've built a battery unit following Gregs advice in his website, so I can endorse that it all works. In the UK it looks like the basic Hobbyking stuff is now being warehoused locally. I opted for a 3 pole double throw switch to give me the lighting option, but I like the idea of double stacking the switches.
Thanks for posting this useful reprise.

 

[PhilP]

Interesting..
Not having fiddled with RC and servos for (many) years.. Do you have any problems with the servos not being 'strong' enough to throw the switches?? - I had not thought of switching using servos..

 

[gregh]

Well I've built a battery unit following Gregs advice in his website, so I can endorse that it all works. In the UK it looks like the basic Hobbyking stuff is now being warehoused locally. I opted for a 3 pole double throw switch to give me the lighting option, but I like the idea of double stacking the switches.
Thanks for posting this useful reprise.

It's great to know someone has found my ideas useful. The UK site for Hobbyking should be really useful for you and bring cost down. I only used the 2 separate switches cause I had them on hand.

Interesting..
Not having fiddled with RC and servos for (many) years.. Do you have any problems with the servos not being 'strong' enough to throw the switches?? - I had not thought of switching using servos..

No problem at all. I only use 'micro' servos and they have plenty of torque to operate the switches.