Question. My grandson is 3. I won him stanz loco. I want to put a very simple kid friendly forward/reverse speed controller on it. I’m thinking a lot like the lines of the RCS stuff I originally used with a Center off knob with left and right forward reverse.
Thought about modification of a cheap rc car controller?
Any ideas.
LGB 5003 is what you want. Safe and durable.
This older model was in all the US starter sets. Newer sets have a 2 piece, wall pack and resistor control. Right now might not be the best time to buy auction trains as prices may be higher for the holidays. These come up for auction or buy it now often as many need more power as their train sets grow.
Is that dead track RC battery?
I might have mentioned that earlier. Needs to be RC
Devon,
We love RC Graphics magnetic critter control. We put it in a PIKO 25-tonner ( Rehab of the Missile Sponges Part the First - Diesel Dan) and it positively changed Kid-zilla’s interaction with the RR. Since little hands needn’t touch the model, it also preserved the handrails and horn. For some reason, over time rechargeable AA batteries no longer seem to work on this system, even when I tried changing out the batteries and the charger. Also, it does not have a reverser. Still, it was the tool that “hooked” Kid-zilla on the RR.
We also used this system for O.S.'s railtruck ( Onward the Pequod – Getting a B’mann Railtruck to Work Permanently). We used a DPDT switch to allow him to reverse the truck. His physical solution to the problem was sub-optimal, but the electronics worked like a charm.
I won’t hazard a guess about stuffing a battery and the circuit board in a STAINZ, but I would guess a three year old could master the magnet for stop-and-go. What you use to control forward-and-back will depend upon your three year old, but, as you know, they only get older.
Were this my project, I would put the battery in a dedicated electronics car. Then, because controlling a locomotive from a box car is no fun, I’d mount the magnets and DPDT switch on the STAINZ. The heavier loco will absorb the less than calibrated handlings of a three year old much better than the battery car!
Have fun!
Eric
P.S. Were I to convert things to battery, I would still use this controller over RC, which is just overkill for the Triple O (fun overkill, to be sure!). It forces interaction with the trains, has programmable acceleration / deceleration, is much cheaper, and, if you are lazy can be used to program automatic safety stops with programmable stop times.
Del has a kid friendly system. Not sure of the age requirement, though, to use it.
I have two of them set up in trailing cars, and they work fine.
I was going to recommend one of the Systems from G Scale Graphics, but Eric and John beat me to it.
Dell is a great guy to work with. Very responsive to email questions and makes great products. I used his older system that used a 2 stick radio for years. I still have a bunch of them sitting here waiting for a use. There doesn’t seem to be a used market for them.
Great. Thanks guys. This was just what I was hoping for.
Eric, I like your solution a lot. The Stanz does not lend itself well for a lot of electronics and batteries and was already considering a trailing car. That would be a good way to go. I don’t mind pouting in a switch on the Stanz some where for reversing. But even then I think he is still a little young for anything more than just letting it go around in circles. We will see. He just loves my trains and last summer pushed a box car around the track anytime he came over.
John, and Jon,
I will also check into the stuff Del has. That could work well also.
[3 days later, and I see that I forgot to hit the Reply button. So FWIW…]
Thought I’d mention the Piko controller, though it’s pretty pricey.
Thanks Cliff.
That looks like a very simple to use controller as well. All these suggestions look like something to consider.
I am leaning toward Dels (gscale graphics) for one primary reason. It has an “oh poop” button, read into that a dead stop option. Instead of decreasing speed to stop. Unless I am mistaken the others don’t have a stop button. I do like the idea of a panic button on it.
All of these have me thinking a bit. I have some ideas to make it as kid proof as possible but still make it so he can grow into it as he matures. Let me run a few ideas by you and see what your thoughts are.
All of these options do not offer reversers that I can see. I don’t mind adding a DPDT switch to do this job and I can see a merit to this in that it would require him to make the loco come to a full stop to switch it and then resume. And likely this will be the way I go just for that reason. But it made me think of future advancement of the design and since there are extra triggers on all of these, is there any sort of DPDT switches that are electrically triggered? I have to assume there is as I would think this is how it is normally done with remotes and controllers that have reversing. If there is a separate switch that could be activated by one of the extra triggers then later I could make it to were he has a reverser on the remote.
Next is speed control. I don’t want him at first to be able to go whizzing around the track at mach 2 out of control. So am thinking about some sort of governing to limit the speed. Awhile back I bought some ghizmos for a project that I can no longer remember what it was that are little adjustable “voltage regulators” where I can very precisely set the DC voltage output regardless of the DC voltage input. Forgive me for not remembering the name of these things but the have a little display on them and you turn a flat head screw to very precisely set your desired output. This would be internal and not something he could mess this. My thought here is could I set the DC output to say 9V or whatever works to give MY desired top speed and then when he pushes the buttons to increase and decrease speed it will give smooth operation but only up to a desired speed. Would this work?
I like the idea of a trailing electronics car to hold all of this. And then using a simple plug and play charging cable to recharge the car.
Update: as I am looking at this on google sense asking my question about reversing polarity using one of the auxiliary triggers, I’m thinking I don’t want a DPDT switch but rather a 12v DPDT relay. Since I know very little about electronics is that, in this sense anyway, relays are basically remotely activated switches. It takes an electrical input to trigger the relay. The idea being that a low voltage input can trigger the relay to switch and transfer the full high voltage load? If so is there such a relay that would take the small low voltage signal from one of the auxiliary triggers to then switch the full 12+V motor current?
This seems like the ticket. My only question would be if the auxillary output current from the speed cntroller would be enough to trigger the relay?
Yes, they are called relays. 
And you can even get “latching relays” that will stay in their last “position” even when the power is removed.
Well I figured that part out at least.
But more importantly Del got back to me and this makes way more sense and we can drop the whole conversation. His comes with reversing. So don’t need to make it do it its already in the system and so is the ability to set max speed. Glad I asked Del and his response was very fast. Sounds like he covered all my bases already.
And his response was very quick and helpful.
Is it done yet 
no Devoning allowed on this project
No won’t be able to Devon this one. This one will need to get done so we can play trains. Should be an easy one to get done quickly once I drop the bucks to get the controller and battery. I have plenty of cars laying around to convert to an electronics car and I don’t plan on doing any detailing to it as he will likely just break off anything I tried to add. So it will be just a quick electronics up grade. And since it is basically all going into a trailing car I can get to work on the loco as really all that needs to be done on it is to remove the track electrical pick ups and wire in a plug.
It needs a stack replacement but I have an extra. So all in all I could probably get it done in a day once I have everything I need.
If I remember correctly the Stanz locomotives have a power plug for lights off the back. It wouldn’t take much to use those plugs for the connection for the battery car.
This single sentence is why I immerse myself into drinking threads with history problems!
I have concluded after 50 plus years of research that “men will grow and age but they will never mature”.
It’s a good thing he’s a grandson Devon cause if it was a granddaughter I would not be able to offer any advice.
Yes. All LGB locos have this, to my knowledge. No idea on how to make power flow from car-to-loco, but I cannot imagine it is too hard, especially in a pre-circuit board loco.
Eric
There’s a little plug that’s on the lighted cars that just plug into the female ends. Not sure what it looks like coming off the wiring circuit.
Will look i to that plug and see how usable it will or could be. The tricky part will be getting the other corresponding end since I don’t have any LGB lighted cars.
Will need to crack it open and determine what’s what. I am thinking four wires minimum unless I’m missing something. Contstant + and - to run the headlight so it is always on. And then the two motor leads. Or is there another way.
all depends on the age of the stainz.
the older models have just two contacts (round, bananaplug-type)
the newer models have flat plugs with four (or five?) contacts.
the older type is nothing more on the inside, than a connection to plus and minus of the power contacts of wheels and sliders.
as i never had one of the newer models open, i ignore, what they connect to.