gowest Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 This might be of interest to some and some may even want to build or copy the idea or parts to build there own Radio Controll System.Starting the Work Part1 The radio control units I bought new for £20 which was a good price for a 2.4g 5 channel unit with radio./media/tinymce_upload/1bd3c285b2ce16904ae8e673dadb67c7.jpgBut what ever you buy it will need to have 4 channels to build the system described here, I am not using PIC processors just TTL and off the shelf stuff.So to start the project we will look at the Transmitter and the changes it under went.The Power reset switch that I was going to add to this system was already on the transmitter so nothing to do there.The main changes will be to the 2 jot stick positions so lets look at them now.I suggest that you make notes of what you do as you go along as when cutting out the old parts and wires from the inside of the transmitter electronics you might want to refer to how it was before you got cutting away wires from various items.The left hand joy stick will be the heater control but this is not essential as these engines take about 10 minutes to heat up and any changes to the heat setting will be very slow to effect the engines performance and will also save a lot of work building the interface boards for the heater settings within the main controller.But for those that want it this it what I did.The left hand joy stick had 2 channels on it and for the heat control switch we only want one so the spare channels still needs its connections to a pot or resistor network which will need to be reinstalled after the joy sticks are removed or used for the power reset switch if you need to add one.So looking at the channel that we are going to use first make a note of how the wires connect to the pots on some paper and the colours, it should look something like the drawing here.If we are using Ch1 then disconnect the wires and fit a 4 position rotary switch/media/tinymce_upload/0b862fbe1d612d69268059b2ec9069b7.jpgHere is the switch in position and wired the group of resistors and wires in the blue circle is the spare ch 2 not used and is just 2 2k2 resistors and the 3 wires Blk, Yel, Red were soldered as the drawing here and covered in clear tape. The switch you can see top right is with the black and red wires is the switch to reset the Hornby power unit but if you do not have this then the spare channel in the blue circle will have to have a toggle switch added to the resistors.The wiring for the heater switch using the 3 wires from the old pot joy stick and 4 resistors which are 10k This then concludes the heater wiring of the rotary switch all that is needed is a suitable panel to mount the switch on I used printed board and the screws that were holding the joy sticks in place and of course a knob, I made the knob for my transmitter in the lathe no doubt some will come up with there own ideas or just use a plain knob. The picture here shows the inside 2 positions on the transmitter of the heater switch and regulator lever with the green LED control lights print board removed to the bottom left hand corner so that you can see the wiring and build of the 2 micro switches and lever and spring all made of printed board material. /media/tinymce_upload/4dd717086b1d1f80c0d8d9f6d6bead57.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/bff4113d4497119d27354162104e6692.jpgThe reset switch wiring/media/tinymce_upload/11fbf9b2a89792e3baf5ac9cae6ef4b4.JPG NeNext to come Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2e0dtoeric Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Interesting!I've got a 'toy' 2.4 Gig transmitter, with a useful range of about as far as I can throw the thing, so if I had a live steam loco, I'd be tempted to have a go at the conversion!I was (off-topic!) contemplating modding an old loco to r/c for a garden railway that never got built, using some micro gear. Put 16v ac onto the track, and a rectifier, receiver and speed controller into the loco. It hasn't got past the thinking about it stage yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Hi2eits having the ideas that's half the battle wish I'd thought of the paper clip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted February 29, 2016 Author Share Posted February 29, 2016 A better picture of the controls complete/media/tinymce_upload/6d8287a7ff64f4b695e151ab66152fd3.jpgNow the last part which is the regulator lever for this we need to built a flip flop PCB and start with some Vero boardThe copper side of the vero board which needs to be about 50mm x 50mm /media/tinymce_upload/e6e82fb8b57db59f8c32b5b14c02880d.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/7ff1e8635e45d6b02ada88103692a8ca.jpg The copper side of the board is show here as being on top with components soldered to the copper side but this is for clarity as the copper tracks are on the under side of the board.With the green LED control board built the only part left to make is the lever if you do not want to go to the trouble of make a lever like the Hornby type then change the micro switches to simple push switches and have the LED’s mounted close to the switch or better still buy push switches that have LED’s fitted in them so that when the switch is pressed the switch lights up and will stay on when the switch is released therefore showing the operator what the last operation was./media/tinymce_upload/666e5a7c16085977a171faa540e5f3b0.jpgThese are push switches with LEDs fitted but check the ones you buy have the right contacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted February 29, 2016 Author Share Posted February 29, 2016 To continue/media/tinymce_upload/164cd411eac952a8aa4113d9d2007cf7.JPGYou can connect a 9v PP3 battery to the power input or the board and check all is working ok before fitting it into the transmitter.Testing the PCB1 With the battery connected you should have a green LEDON if you connect the yellow wire to the 0 volt rail see what happens to the LED doe it change or stay ON.2 Now connect the blue wire to the 0 volt rail and once more see what happens you should be able to turn ON and OFF the green LED’s just by dabbing the yellow and blue wires momentarily on the 0 volts making them switch back and forth. If this is happening then all is working OK and the unit can be wired in as the drawings. Don’t forget to add the 4 resistors R3 2k2, R4 10k, R5 2k2, R6 10k, to what ever switches you are using this will give the necessary setting for the TX as the drawing below.The wiring is straight forward follow the drawing below /media/tinymce_upload/d6604e4906d1312af5060320f283d37f.jpgIt will not be possible to test the transmmiter out unit we built the interface board for the receiver which we will come to next./media/tinymce_upload/87ad2ba56c02354c1da22650a360e75c.JPGThe picture above shows the complete assembly fitted That then are all the changes needed for the transmitter the next part will be the main control unit and radio receiver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 2, 2016 Author Share Posted March 2, 2016 The Radio and Control Unit I will try to break this down into 5 or 6 parts so that it is easier to understand and build for those of us that do not have the full electronic skills of others but its basic TTL electronics so nothing clever here.This picture of the complete system showing all the main wiring and units. /media/tinymce_upload/b437ac720cf56921f77935db68636e35.jpg I think the transmitter part is self explanatory so will leave that part out as for the control unit lets now go over what it does and how it works.The Hornby power unit will supply the main power to the control unit for running the engine this power unit has an over load protection device inside which shuts down the power when a short appears on the track or wiring.The Control unit has a few different parts but when you break it down its not that difficult a job to understand or build, so lets look first at the picture here of the lay out of the different parts./media/tinymce_upload/c3a0cd0504e4377553ec5c09ac8fa1dc.JPGThe reset of the Hornby power unit.To make it rest able its 230 v ac supply needs to be switched OFF and ON this is achieved by making its 230v ac supply come from the control unit first so it can be reset using the radio receiver and interface board and a relay for the switching. “no running back to the house or shed to reset”If you can make out the leads in the picture you can see the power lead plugged into the Hornby power unit is coming from the control unit /media/tinymce_upload/b61dcf3797f73f762dcabe19dcf77f9d.jpg The other controls are top left the power on switch with blue LED for power ON next to that is the volt meter, below that the heater control and radio switch which has 3 red LED’s which you can see are on for full heat if you turn this knob passed the last LED this position is marked RC and in this position the radio side of the control unit is switched ON and will now be linked to the transmitter.The regulator comes next and is as the Hornby system but with one difference the timing delay for the servo motor in the engine can be changed giving it short or long running periods.This delay is controlled by the small red and black knob on the right of the panel that concludes the systems operation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 Lets start with an easy part the 12 volt and 6 volt power unit not pictured very well but a very simple unit to start with.This unit will supply the small voltage needed to work the radio and interface electronics which will work on 6 volts and other LED’s and relays and the timer unit which will work on 12 volts.We will need a small piece of Vero board to build this power unit on so once again cut a piece the size you need and using a small 3 to 4 mm drill cut the track in one place as in the drawing. The copper track is on the under side of the board but it is show here as being on top this is for clarity when assembling the components PARTSWe will need 5 Qty 1N 4007 diodes 1 Qty 7805 1 amp voltage regulator1 Qty 2200uf 25volt capacitor1 Qty 1 k resistor1 Qty Red LED1 Qty Switch/media/tinymce_upload/355a237a44f3b4567590d803dde33ff1.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 In the picture above in the yellow box is the area we are going to build next.4 wires will go to the front panel 2 to the on/off switch 1 from the switch to the LED light, a red 1 +5v wire for other LED’s and units which we will come to. The resistor and 1 0 volt wire will also be used when we come to the other switches on the front panel for Forwards and Backwards to switch on and off the green LED’s indicating the last switch operation. but we will come to all that later.The voltage regulator will need a small strip of aluminium about 25mm wide and 35mm long plus a small screw and some heat transfer grease to dissipate the heat it will generate. These regulators have a heat sensor built into the chip which will shut down the IC if it gets to hot so saving the component from death/media/tinymce_upload/2ccc2223f26950ed4415813c8da55d72.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/3b810ff7d630a555d818ae7f3ed988d4.jpgI hope this part is clear to all and if not let me know as an extra help in the picture below is the block diagram/media/tinymce_upload/7f4776af6ffc54b720a915da993ee3c8.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 I have had one or two new ideas but they need to be tested out so may inclued them as mods at the end like the volt/amp meter that looka to be a way of checking whats goping on with an engine that may have a fault or starting to develop a fault./media/tinymce_upload/735b943bb2d6775da37681965038d211.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 I will never need one, so will never make one, but oh-boy I really enjoy reading about them.Thanks Gowest for your ongoing reports, extremely interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 16, 2016 Author Share Posted March 16, 2016 The next part to build is the power unit for the engines servo motor A few ideas for the power unit but it had to be small as space was getting tight so what is needed is a high currant not less than 6 amps and a voltage about of about 8 volts The first simple design is below which is a standard voltage regulator of 8 volts and a resistor 5 watt 1 ohm and a diode to jack up the 8 volts of the regulator as the output of the regulator will drive a power transistor 2N 3055 so .7 volt will be lost through this device./media/tinymce_upload/9e537efb74d6ffdbae40fa055f13ce26.jpgThe transistor will need to have a heat sink as it will be driven very hard so will get very hot. the power for this small power unit will come from the hornby power unit. again the unit canbe seen in the picture below in the yellow box area./media/tinymce_upload/bbcb22062689d05268384f2640fdb219.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 16, 2016 Author Share Posted March 16, 2016 Now we need some of the interface PCB's the first one to make is for the Reset of the Hornby main power unit/media/tinymce_upload/eb9b4e22e56442e70c1b574f93a5d236.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/8560c774c771fb6fed6885352514aaf3.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/c4b278b0a5118ecdb0fb29cf5c1d5c7e.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/96e14100534d280cfefbcc66daf3d116.jpgThe relay is not mounted on this board but is placed at the 230v AC input connection for the Hornby power unit this way when the function is used the relay will switch OFF the mains to this power unit allowing it to reset.Once again the copper track is on the under side .Once built if it is connected to the receiver and batteries using the correct channel a simple test can be carried out .Turn on the transmitter and operate the Reset switch to be ON then turning the trim pot on the PCB at some point in its travel the LED should light up. When it does turn the switch on the transmitter OFF for that channel and the LED should go out . Test complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Very interesting continuation of the saga Gowest. BTW what software are you using to draw up your veroboard layouts and the associated diagrams.I wondered why the component parts in these packages were so big relative to the board, as they masked so much of the board when placed over it, but now I realise it's so you can pull them well off board and just have the connections on board for clarity.Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 17, 2016 Author Share Posted March 17, 2016 Hi RAFI'm using a MS publisher maybe not he best but I get there in the end my Problem now is trying to work out how it did work and try to get it over so that it's easy to understand for them that maybe have not built much in the electronics line before But it all simple stuff.i feel like I should look again at the unit and try to improve on the design but as i have to much other bits going on does not look like any time soon but others might change and improve bits or use parts to develop there own system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 18, 2016 Author Share Posted March 18, 2016 Just though I should mention the main picture of the complete unit shows that the interface PCB were built with 3 sets of the electronics on one board as they are all the same but it's up to you i have just done it this way to make it easy to understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted March 18, 2016 Author Share Posted March 18, 2016 I thought that I'd post a link of the radio control working but cannot find it here so maybe I haven't so here's the link if you want to see it working Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 More interface board is based on a 4013 duel flip flop the pin connections are shown in the picture below./media/tinymce_upload/387eed888e57807e7f077e2a9839ad5e.jpgI made 2 boards and then built the units in sets of 3 as in the picture above. The heater control has 3 extra pots so the heater voltage can be set for the 3 heat settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 /media/tinymce_upload/90b61ac5c928584baa6efed20ea26e5d.jpgAs each LED lights the power to the loco goes up so one LED would be the lowest setting and all 3 LED’s will be the highest setting. The pot are connected to a PWM power unit from that flea bay and was cheaper to but than make and had an out put of some 20 amps you can see it here in the picture with the heavy wiring in red and white./media/tinymce_upload/a2e1a6c49322f1fb2026507ba3cd059a.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 Just a note to say the parts list above should read RV1 100k Qty 9LEDS RED Qty6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 /media/tinymce_upload/0e912916d24e0d4c6ae0b8c9d1b0dde0.jpgThis drawing gives the main wiring for the engine heaters and the lower voltage for the engine servo motor along with the relating switching which is by 2 relays RLA and RLB which need to be able to handle at least 10 amp.The change over relay A is powered by the timer unit so will keep the selected polarity by relay B for the length of time set by the timer control. Once the timer has run its set length of time then relay A will switch OFF and revert back to the heater power settings.A word about the timer unit you can make it if you wish as its just a 555 timer IC but again I bought my one front that site on the web. It needs connecting to the 12 volt side of our small power unit and a connection made to the negative side of the electrolytic capacitor on the timer PCB which then goes to the front panel and is then connected to D2 neg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 /media/tinymce_upload/8cd1ca574399c740d3fd45f8d1b054ba.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/1e0ce69215e9df94f4706dfa1d562440.jpgThe timer unit and it connectionsThe first picture is of the timer unit and the second picture is the under side of the timer unit PCB showing the connections.1. The white and yellow wires go to the front panel and connect to a 10k pot by adjusting the 2 pots the one on the main trim pot on the PCB and the control pot on the front panel a timing range can be set that suits you I recommend no more than 3 seconds full travel.2. The green wire is the trip connection and as said goes to D2 neg when the regulator lever is moved the timer is tripped to run.3. The blue wire goes to a LED on the front panel and with its resistor of 220R gives an indication as to the length of time the unit is set to.I see in the picture below of the pot wiring that I have added a resistor 2k2 to the yellow wire connection to the centre tag of the pot which might be my fine tuning of the timer and you can see the LED next to the pot./media/tinymce_upload/13b9b91df599ee2bfddce2cea5004ebb.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 a change to the wiring when i refer to the trip for the timer coming from D2 neg this should read SSR1sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gowest Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 /media/tinymce_upload/79e8dae24d634f23d6ee1981839dd551.JPGThe wiring diagram for the front panel which as with the transmitter uses a Flip Flop to control the forwards and backwards of the engines servo motor. As said there is also a SSR which drives the timer trip which due to a mod changed the old wiring of the trip to D2 as this was unstable in operation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 All great stuff GoWest.Thanks for taking the time and effort to show us in detail how it was all done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkingthedog Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Thanks gowest very interesting. I've built quite a few circuits from kits in the past but wouldn't have a clue how to build one from scratch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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