Large Scale Central

RCS Battery R/C and sound in a Berlyn Casey Jones Railbus

I recently finished stuffing all of the above inside the little jewel made by Berlyn. It was probably the most challenging installation I have done to date space wise. I managed to keep the height of all the components a millipuff below the bottom of the side windows. The owner will cover the load to disguise it anyway. Firstly I removed the body from the chassis. This is held in with just four easily accessible screws. Do not remove the two most forward screws as they hold the drivers seat in place. I drilled two small holes at the rear of the chassis platform to feed the antenna down underneath and to allow access to the old track pick ups. Although if I did another one I would simply connect the ESC output to the on board wiring under the drivers seat.

I had a special 4 x AA cell Li-Ion battery pack (with LVC) made and mounted it and the RX on a styrene sheet which I glued to the chassis floor with silicone adhesive. I used a small slider switch to steer battery voltage to either the charger or the control system. The charger simply plugs into the small red 2 x wire connector seen next to the switch. The data transfer line comes down from the control system and plug into the three wire plugs on the RX. The whole assembly leaves just enough vertical clearance for the components to sit underneath the two seats on the body. Next I mounted a small Phoenix oval speaker up in the roof. It is very low profile and is virtually invisible. The volume is not very loud as I did not make a decent baffle. The owner will be able to do that.

Lastly I made a suitable thin styrene tray to mount the RCS BASIC-3 ESC and sound trigger pcb’s plus the Dallee rail bus sound system. They easily fit the available space and keep the profile nice and low the way I did them. The tray is tilted over to fit via the rear doors and sits on the two length ways seats. The wires tuck in under the tray and the doors can be shut for operation.

Originally I had the antenna connected to an old pick up wiper on one wheel and the range was not very good at all. I fixed that by mounting a long thin styrene tube under the chassis and feeding an AZARR 27-Lite antenna down the tube. That fixed the range. The little jewel runs superbly