Information sought on radio controlled gas fired 5″ gauge locomotives es

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

Hi – I have seen a number of videos of 5" gauge steam locomotives running around garden tracks under radio control hauling scale sized rolling stock fired by bottled gas in place of the more traditional coal firing .The overall effect is quite impressive and in my opinion visually more appealing than having a full sized driver hunched up over a 1/12th sized model. Problem is that I have never been able to locate any write-ups or detailed drawings of just how these conversions are carried out. Can anyone provide me with some useful pointers to how this is achieved/

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

If your good with electronics it would be easy – though complex ! You would need to understand the skill of driving a loco to design the boiler management systen.. You would need to be a reasonably good as an engineer to build the servo units Etc Most of the parts avajlable, they would need adapting to suit this application. OR plan B, have a deep pocket !

The reverser could be converted to a screw reverser. The regulator could also be operated by a leadscrew, this would give the fine control needed. Just a few thoughts. Noel

[MichaelRParticipant @michaelr]

This forum post may give a little help. Link

MichaelR

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

RC servos are mostly rotary so perhaps you could hide them in a false fronted tender. The water gauges could be watched via a drone video unit.

gas on /off on a flick switch.

regulator on a throttle stick

reverser might have to be forward only.

Fine control can be done via the stick trim pots if necessary.

I suspect most if not all engineer their own solutions.

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

You could look into the Gl5 organisation/club. Link to homepage here:

GL5

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Look at servos for R/C model yachts.

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

That video clip of the Black Five is superb and is the one that got me interested but I had not seen the still shots of the footplate mounted servos before which is the sort of detail I have looking for showing for example how the regulator is connected to its servo motor. Question: Is the loco gas fired or coal fired? Which leads to a second question that if in fact it is gas fired, does that not result in potentially disastrous/expensive differential thermal expansion problems? So many questions…….but a very interesting possible project

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

Re last post. – Have just seen that the loco is coal fired but I would be interested to hear anyone has considered using bottled gas to fire a 5" engine and what if any potential problems might lay in wait.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

The radio control of live steam locos is not a new thing really – the 16mm guys have been doing it for a long time.

In 2.5" gauge, the first use of a (modern) R/C system was probably the one installed by Ralph Brewer in the early 1980's (which doesn't seem that long ago somehow). Ralph wrote about his system in one of the railway mags at the time and this was reproduced in the G3S Newsletter in 2007. It is one of the artcles available for download as a PDF from the G3S website – which if you are curious, you can find here…

G3S Article Downloads (scroll down!)

Ralph's article is number '005' – and the current owner (Julian) talks about Ralph (and his loco) in article number '050'.

I don't think there should be any great difference between R/C on a 5" versus 2.5" engine in most respects (things can be worked by servos – regulator, blower, whistle etc) – but maybe a brake would also be a nice idea.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 17/01/2022 22:02:36

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