Tootle Engineering 7/8n2 critter gets the RCS treatment.

[Tony Walsham]

This week I had the opportunity to install a battery R/C system in a Tootle Engineering 7/8n2 critter. There is plenty of room under the bonnet/hood for the batteries and R/C control system. I chose to use 4 x 1500 mah Li-Ion cells wired in series to give 14.8 volts. I made up a styrene sheet on which I mounted the battery pack. Above that I made some more styrene supports for the ECL-3r ESC & decoder assembly.

The resulting "brick" is 65 mm x 55 mm x 60 mm tall. The owner had me fit the regular Hobby King 6 channel RX which simply plugs in upside down on the decoder part. No servo leads needed.

The block ends up looking like this:

Then I added the 4 way cable between the decoder and the ESC.

If you want to use an Spektrum AR500 RX it looks like this:

The assembly is connected by pre-made plugs and sockets and simply drops into the bonnet/hood space.

The red plug shown poking up is for the charger. It does not matter where the antenna is located. All wrapped up and ready to go.

The TX will give a size comparison. The critter is quite big and runs superbly.

 

[Budd]

I will refrain from having a good natured dig about you using Li-On batteries Tony but I do have a couple of serious questions, is the "pack" removable for recharging and what recharger is going to be used with the "pack".


Excellent work as usual Tony, but we expect no less, 10/10.

 

[Tony Walsham]

Thank you Budd.

I am still a bit leery where Li-Ion batteries are concerned.
The only Li-Ion batteries I can get made up use a pcb that does not shut off completely. It was designed for battery R/C planes so allows a small amount of current to operate the servos and land the plane. Because these locos draw so little current they can still keep running if unattended and take the battery pack below the safe threshold. If a Li-Ion battery is run down too far it will not take a charge. There is a way of retrieving the situation but the procedure is not something I would recommend to the layman.

The owner of the loco lives fairly close by so I can take care of any discharge problems here.

I am enjoying using my LGB # 50 diesel which has an identical cell battery, albeit in a different configuration.

The "brick" is removable, but that was not for charging.
There is a 2 x way connector shown for charging which uses an Observer 4 Li-Ion battery charger. These use a suitable 12 volt regulated switch mode power supply. My own personal charger set up has been very reliable.

 

[MR SPOCK]

A very neat and workmanlike installation there Tony, ​