Today on the WGLR
- Thread starter yb281
- Start date
Don Gilham
Model railways, Photography, anything lazy
Terrific stuff Mel 
beavercreek
Travel, Art, Theatre, Music, Photography, Trains
Fantastic Mel. Your 'little bit of Britain' line is really inspiring and evocative. Hats off to your modelling skills mate.
As to wimpy reaction to weather...I only play golf when it is dry...no cold wet days. Just been out clearing leaves and that is enough for me!
As to wimpy reaction to weather...I only play golf when it is dry...no cold wet days. Just been out clearing leaves and that is enough for me!
jameshilton
Registered
Lovely lovely lovely - even better with the tramway diesel 
Thanks again Mike, James and Richie.
A big decision has been taken recently - the WGLR is going completely over to battery power. Track power will still be available for visiting loco's, but the home fleet will be 100% battery. I had come to the point where I really thought I needed to either go digital if I was going to stick with track power, or go down the battery route. I have now sold all of the chips from my locos and this sale will fund complete battery conversion, the self financing aspect being a strong motivation in making this decision.
At the moment the plan is for the Corpet and Spreewald to have self contained radio control with Li-Po batteries. Not sure what will happen to the Bachmann Baldwin until I get the chance to take it apart (after Chrissie). All the remaining locos will run with battery RC in trailing vans. All the RC kit will be from Cliff Barker of course.
A big decision has been taken recently - the WGLR is going completely over to battery power. Track power will still be available for visiting loco's, but the home fleet will be 100% battery. I had come to the point where I really thought I needed to either go digital if I was going to stick with track power, or go down the battery route. I have now sold all of the chips from my locos and this sale will fund complete battery conversion, the self financing aspect being a strong motivation in making this decision.
At the moment the plan is for the Corpet and Spreewald to have self contained radio control with Li-Po batteries. Not sure what will happen to the Bachmann Baldwin until I get the chance to take it apart (after Chrissie). All the remaining locos will run with battery RC in trailing vans. All the RC kit will be from Cliff Barker of course.
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
yb281 said:
The Wetton Gooey Lightly Battered Railway
beavercreek
Travel, Art, Theatre, Music, Photography, Trains
yb281 said:
Have you considered the Aristocraft Revolution option, Mel?
I saw it put through its paces at Tony's and was mightily impressed. You have a handset that is about the size of the mobile phones that were about a few years back (not the original ones!) and a single chip for each loco. It has an LCD screen with info much like on a Massoth navigator. The workings are also very much like DCC but are not DCC.
Each loco has an address and running parameters and functions (like sound, lights and smoke) that can be easily set up for each loco. The chip that you put in the loco will work off either track or battery and is pretty small and has a short little wire aerial. It can connect easily to sound cards, smoke boards or lighting.
I wanted to have a couple or three of battery locos for when I did not want to clean the track during the winter and have got hold of a handset and three chips. The ease of use,the flexibility and the ability for one controller to be able to operate up to 50 individual locos (as if I would need that !) made me go for the Revolution solution. It is also dead easy to set up locos to work on consists or lash-ups if needed.
Yes Mike I have looked at the Revolution. The main reason for not going down that route is the cost of buying the kit and then having to buy chips for each loco. I also do not like the lack of compatibility with other systems. One member of our GSS uses it on his US outline railway with track power and, to be honest, I'm not impressed. His track has to be absolutely immaculately clean even for his big US locos with loads of pick-ups, the polar opposite of my little 0-4-0's. Also, no-one else takes any of their trains to run at his open days, because they're not compatible. Obviously, battery power with the Revolution would get around this, but you've still got the cost of chips ON TOP of the price of batteries.
To put Cliff Barker battery RC in a wagon costs just under £150, but then to convert a loco to run with that wagon only costs 75P or £1.50 if I want leads on both ends. Sound, smoke, lights etc. are all possible, but to be honest reliable slow running is the priority for me (I only had one sound fitted loco anyway).
I think that battery propulsion with digital control is probably the way forward, but I'm not sure that Revolution is the answer as things stand, certainly not for me.
To put Cliff Barker battery RC in a wagon costs just under £150, but then to convert a loco to run with that wagon only costs 75P or £1.50 if I want leads on both ends. Sound, smoke, lights etc. are all possible, but to be honest reliable slow running is the priority for me (I only had one sound fitted loco anyway).
I think that battery propulsion with digital control is probably the way forward, but I'm not sure that Revolution is the answer as things stand, certainly not for me.
Doug
Live Steam, scratch building
Massoth will eventually bring out a radio module that plugs into their DCC chips allowing them to be controlleddirectly by one of the wireless Massoth handsets, ie doing without the main control box. Should work with battery power as well as track, as the DCC signal is sent via radio rather than through the track
beavercreek
Travel, Art, Theatre, Music, Photography, Trains
Yes I can see that 'normal' RC is the best solution for you.yb281 said:
The Revolution chip does need the capacitor board add on to be fine using tack power on dirty track, or even partially dirty or even for any drop out....a bit like DCC can be ......
My reason for suggesting it is partially due to the fact that I got the brand new handset plus three chips for a couple of notes so it sort of makes sense for what I want to do. Also I saw Tony's locos runnig with battery and they were superb.
I will not use the Revos for track power as I have TE ordinaire at present and will.....drift to the dark side for part of the layout. But DCC needs good track too so I wonder what will show?