Large Scale Central

K-27 RCS installation update

I have just had another K-27 through my shop to have RCS battery R/C and Phoenix P8 sound fitted.

Most of the conversions I have done in the past have been used mostly for stop- start and shunting operation.  For convenience and visual purposes they had the charge jack mounted under the coal load as the regular 2500 mah SubC NiCd battery packs provided plenty of running time for the owners. 
Here is an earlier installation I did with the jack on the rear of the tender shell. Early version K-27 installation.
Previous installation using the front mounted control panel.  Making the control panel
The owner of this latest conversion wanted to have a longer run time so, rather than trying to fit larger capacity (read much more expensive) batteries I showed him how easy it is to plug in a trail car with auxilliary batteries into the rear of the tender.
The owner also wanted the charge jack / aux port as unobtrusive as possible so I mounted the jack on the rear cross beam instead of on the tender shell.  A little touch up with black paint will make it virtually invisible.


To do this required a judicious bit of hole drilling and carving away behind that rear beam to fit the jack.



There is no way of using a retaining nut on the outside to hold the jack in place so I glued it in with silicone adhesive.  Be careful not to get any adhesive insde the jack or it will not function at all.
Once the glue had set I replaced the trim part for neatness.

The three wire connection cabling comes up through the floor and connects to the control panel.  (see later).



The P8 (in the foreground) and the RCS ESC decoder (in the background) were glued in place with silicone adhesive.
I like to keep the wiring neat and tidy so the wires were carefully laid out for length and tied together with cable ties.
The RCS Motor Driver part simply plugs into the Bachmann socket.  It works everything without any wiring modifications.
A low cost 1 watt speaker was adequate and gives booming sound when the coal load is n place.

The 2 x 7.2 volt 2500 mah SubC NiCd battery packs were glued up under the top of the tender on each side.  You will have to reduce the height of the weights, or remove them entirely.  The tender is heavy enough with the batteries in place to not miss them.



Viewed from the top with the shell on.



The control board is at the front and hidden from view when the coal load is in place.
The controls from top left are:
P8 programming jack,  P8 volume control, ON - OFF switch and the RCS programming button.

Enjoy!!!