TOBY takes to the rails.

[Tony Walsham]

Another of the Thomas & Friends locos gets the RCS treatment.
Toby is a motorised box with plenty of room inside. It has a very good drive mechanism and is quite happy running on 8 AA size NiMh 1600 mah battery packs.

The two 4.8 volt battery packs were glued either side of the drive mechanism with the LT-SW3 that controls the lights and sound trigger glued to one battery pack.

The RCS # ALPHA-3 ESC (modified Deltang Rx65-2) was mounted on top of the drive mechanism.
The MyLocosound was glued to the battery pack on the other side of the drive block.

Unfortunately there is no provision for a speaker so I drilled small holes at the front side of the chassis and glued a standard 1" speaker in place. Sound volume is quite good because the body acts as a boom box.
If the operating eyes were removed and the body modified to have open end platforms the speaker would need to be mounted somewhere else.

I removed the stock NMRA switch and wiring. The motor wires are simply connected to the ESC outputs.

Bright LED's were fitted at either end and the standard BIK installation kit and charge jack were mounted on the end.
The same mounting dimensions were used as for the other locos. Available at the RCS website.

The owner now has a full compliment of Thomas & Friends locos plus a Baguley Drewry diesel for his three grandchildren. Each has their own personal TX handpiece and can call up any available loco at will. This flexibility greatly enhances the play value of the excellent Bachmann locos.

 

[Madman]

Sounds good Tony. Can we see Toby in action?

 

[Tony Walsham]

Not from me you can't.
Unfortunately I don't have a movie camera let alone know how to do movies.

 

[Madman]

Bummer.

 

[Tony Walsham]

Dan if you can picture a box on wheels.............

 

[Madman]

I drive a Ford Transit Connect..........

http://www.oaklandfordlincoln.ca/component/autosweet/details/0c3c5e60f2084cb399d853b6aa10a573/2011-Ford-TRANSIT-CONNECT

 

[ge_rik]

Neat job, Tony. My conversions look like an explosion in a spaghetti factory after I've crammed all the bits and pieces into the available space.

Rik
PS - Do you have a movie setting on your digital camera? If so, you could always take a couple of shots and upload them to Youtube. All my early videos were shot with an inexpensive digital stills camera

 

[Moonraker]

Tony,

Why don't you take it to the Southern Highlands SteamUp in three weeks time. There would be lots of people there with video cameras who would do one for you. Then I could help you upload it to Youtube if they were unable to.

Regards
Peter Lucas
MyLocoSound

 

[Tony Walsham]

Good idea Peter, but no can do. I delivered the loco to the owner in Sydney back in Feb.

 

[spoz]

Neat job, Tony. My conversions look like an explosion in a spaghetti factory after I've crammed all the bits and pieces into the available space.

Mine too. By what's not really a coincidence given when the loco became available I had just finished doing mine when Tony posted; had spaghetti junction on the workbench in front of me to compare with the result a pro achieves. Oh well, it runs I guess, and the grandkids are happy. One thing, getting the moving eyes reengaged with the drive mechanism seems less challenging than it was with Thomas (or I'm getting better at it) - I stuffed up and Toby didn't work initially so he had to come apart again, and in both cases when reassembled the mechanism engaged easily.

 

[Tony Walsham]

I agree Spoz. Those eyes did slot back in quite easily.
What I usually do is get them and the mech centered, tape the eyes in place before removing them and return the mech to the same position after testing and before reassembly.

Toby runs very smoothly but is, apart from the eyes, totally devoid of anything moving at all. Like I said, a box on wheels.
Still removing the eyes, their mech and opening up the end platforms would be a snip.
What would one replace the square plastic eyes and frame with?
A radiator would look good but would be wrong of course, so did a boiler front protrude out the front of real locos along those lines?
Then again a radiator front would instantly convert Toby into some sort of internal combustion lok.

 

[Madman]

Neat job, Tony. My conversions look like an explosion in a spaghetti factory after I've crammed all the bits and pieces into the available space.

Rik
PS - Do you have a movie setting on your digital camera? If so, you could always take a couple of shots and upload them to Youtube. All my early videos were shot with an inexpensive digital stills camera

I haven't graduated from my Kodak Digital yet. I use it to film all of my Youtube uploads. The only thing I cannot do with it is pause in the middle of filming and continue filming after a pause. When I stop filming, the next time I press the shutter release, it's a new film. :'(

 

[Tony Walsham]

I did have a Cannon digital that also did movies a few years ago. Fairly expensive.
It lasted almost exactly 2 years and died about 1 week after the warranty ran out. It diagnosed itself as having a lens error. I was given a quote of A$40 dollars to have it fixed so I sent it into Cannon to be repaired. A quote for almost what it cost came back to repair it. I declined and from then on I will never buy another Cannon product. PERIOD!!!
At the moment I cannot afford another movie camera and make do with my now 14 yo Fuji digital camera for any photography needed for my business. It might only be 1.2 megapixels but it does pretty good close ups and takes tiff pics as well as JPG files.
I do have an I Phone that works pretty well but being a 3s, does not do movies.

 

[Madman]

My kids gave me a Kodak LS753 5.0 Mega-pixel camera about eight years ago. Very easy to use. I dropped it last year and the battery retainer broke. Found the same camera on Ebay for $5.00 in non working condition. I swopped out the battery retainer and all is fine. Very easy camera to use. Takes an excellent photograph and great videos.

Technology is great. Don't have to buy film. Can take as many shots as I want to and not have to worry about how much film I'm using. Can delete pictures at the touch of a button. Can upload to my computer and edit the pictures. Fits in my pocket. Don't have to manually focus.

I loved my old Miranda SLR. There are things that an SLR can do that you cannot do with a digital camera. But in the grand scheme of things, the newer technology simplifies my life. And I like that. It matches my mind. :