Your Projects

About a year ago there was much chatter on the forums about garden railways and in particular OO Live Steam garden railways.

At the same time we were talking about possible remote control of the layouts via radio control or similar and one of our members Ken went to some great efforts to produce a bespoke system based on the direct control of the Hornby system, producing a clever interface to work with the standard system. This system is in use on another members garden layout and works well.

At the same time I was thinking along parallel lines of radio control but I wanted to utilise the tried and tested Livedrive unit that we have become accustomed to using for the last 3 years to control our locos with a much more responsive and finer control.

As my concurrent hobby to OO live steam is flying r/c model aircraft (when the weather allows) I have an inside knowledge of what would be required and I also have a few transmitters spare to play with.

My idea was fairly simple,,,to add a radio front end to the live drive unit to allow control of the relays from an input on the transmitter.

To that end I realised i would need a larger box to house the complete caboodle and a visit to Maplins produced the next size up metal box similar to the standard Livedrive box.

At home I already had a spare and now obsolete Spektrum 2.4 gig Park-fly transmitter, a suitable receiver, an rx battery pack and a switch harness. What I would need to buy is a couple of radio controlled flight switches which plug into 2 separate rx channels. (These are used on models to switch on lights, smoke systems or apply a forward rx pack voltage to any such desired device.) These were obtained from an ebay vendor and construction began.

A little into the project it dawned on me that I didn’t exactly need the forward voltage of 5v as supplied from the flight switches to work the relays but instead I needed a simple electronic version of the ‘contact’ making red buttons on the Livedrive handset.

A chat with one of my radio flying buddies who happens to be a Doctor in the Electronics field soon had us scribbling down notes and in short course , and as one does, an interface was designed on a napkin in the pub. This would be a small piece of vero board with two JFET transistors and some resistors and wire links which would give an interface to give the correct operation needed to the relays.

In short, the 5v input from the flight switches would be turned into a switching output applying a common to either side of the relays, the same operation as the red buttons.

The next small obstacle was that because the 2.4 gig thin wire aerials from the receiver are very short, about 50mm, and would be enclosed within a full metal jacket, I felt that to give the expected and uninterrupted range, I would install a couple of the rubber folding type of aerials you find on a 2.4 gig network PCI Express card that plugs into the rear of a PC. So off to Maplins again to buy exactly that!

After I cut-off the electronics board of the card straight into the trash (I know,, a waste!!) and adapted the remaining chassis to fit into the lid of the new box complete with thin aerials and an active LED, I was up and running.

The unit was eventually completed, battery’s charged, receiver bound (similar to ‘pairing’) to the transmitter and some mixing of channels carried out to give the desired relay operation.

Over the last year much work was put into the new website, shop expansion and latterly the On Line shop so, as you do, final testing was not carried out until the day before the recent London Festival of Model Railway show at Ally Pally. Suffice to say, all worked well, lights flickered, and relays twitched!

The next day in London, the unit was fired up, locos put into steam, and from the off, the unit worked excellently. Control of the locos was very similar to the analogue handset with just a little more latency due to the extra milliseconds and stick movement on the transmitter.

A waggle or three ‘up’ stick and the loco would be off,, a waggle or two back to check the initial gallop and the train was pulling nicely out of the siding onto the mainline.

I should also point out that the original Livedrive push button handset is still used and plugged in in the normal manner to give an alternative means of control as I had to point out to Charles who was over the moon with the new control concept, he took to the radio with a smile on his face.

Latter in the day, fun was had watching Charles furiously twirling the stick to control his loco to no avail,,,,,he didnt know that i had switched the radio side off to give the batteries a break!!

The flight switches have operation lights which show red through the case to confirm switch operation.

To be able to walk about the roadshow regardless of train position and maintain full control of the loco is a very nice feeling, even on the outside of the layout. A few onlookers saw the radio and thought the radio was possibly communicating to the loco via some onboard radio gubbins but not so, its all in the Livedrive folks.

When I eventually get a garden layout set up, this radio controlled system will fall into its own as I will have full roaming access to my train opps,,, well up to half a kilometre or so actually should I develop eagle eyesight!!!

There was, and may well be more talk on making the project details available to members but I suspect it will be only from those who have or plan to have an outdoor layout and could benefit from the remote control afforded by this project.

Basically one would need the following items: A Livedrive built into a larger metal box, a suitable transmitter and receiver, a 4 cell rx pack, a switch harness, 2 no radio switch interfaces, the JFET interface, a pair of rubber aerials complete with mounting chassis.

In the meantime, I will obtain the deatails of the JFET interface.