At long last I have had a customer send me a sample of the latest version of the Bachmann Lyn for conversion to battery R/C.
The Lyn is one sweet little loco.  It runs really smoothly and is quite easy to pull apart.
There are a couple of ways to install battery R/C and this is the way I have done it without sound.
It is quite small and there are some left over mouldings from the previous version inside the boiler which have to be removed.  Plus it is necessary to remove the smoke unit to get access to the boiler insides to remove the offending bits of plastic.
To start remove the four screws holding the chassis to the body.
The chassis simply drops out in one piece, making life very easy.

I then removed the stock Bachmann pcb from the chassis.  To get the chassis top as flat as possible I cut off the four pcb mounting lugs with side cutters.

The two part RCS # PRO-3 ESC sits snugly down on the chassis top held in place with non metallic silicone adhesive.

Next up was removing the plastic mouldings inside the boiler.  I did this with a long hacksaw blade via the front of the smoke box, finished off with a sharp hobby knife.

Just about the only place for the ON-OFF switch, charge jack and programming push button is between the firebox and cab wall.  These parts were mounted through the floor of the cab and are unseen from outside.

Access to the switch, jack and pushbutton is from the underside.  I will space them out a little further next time.

I used two 7.2 volt packs of ENELOOP hybrid NiMh - Alkaline made up three cells wide by two cells long.  These are mounted one in each water tank.  To do so you must remove the weights and the plastic weight locating stanchions.  I did that with side cutters.

The batteries will only fit if you cant the over slightly when gluing them in.


14.4 volts provides a nice top speed to compliment the smooth running of the loco.  I am amazed at how much traction it has.  8 pieces of scratch built bogie rolling stock on the flat.
Nice one Bachmann.

The Lyn comes fitted with a speaker mounted behind the rear of the cab.  It also has a proper mechanical chuff timer as well.
Although my customer didn't want sound I thought I would trial fit a MyLocosound, but there is not quite enough room under the boiler for it as well as the R/C equipment.
I have figured out another way of doing it using Li-Ion batteries mounted in the boiler instead of the side tanks. That will free up the two side tanks for the sound in one and the decoder in the other with the actual motor driver part in the smoke box.  That will be done with the next one that is coming shortly.

Here is an article on how I go about converting the CONNIE to battery R/C using RCS and MyLocosound.

http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=17049

The pdf file equivalent http://rcs-rc.com/PDF/Acessories/Installation-kits/BIK-CONNIE.pdf

RCS now has this installation updated and in pdf format.

http://rcs-rc.com/PDF/How-to/3-Truck-Shay.pdf

This last week it has been my privilege to install my RCS R/C and Phoenix P8 sound into the latest Bachmann Climax.

IMHO the new Climax is one of the best engineered Large Scale locos it has been my pleasure to work on. Everything simply fits inside the tender.  No need to make any changes to the stock Bachmann wiring. Period.
For a track powered R/C loco the installation is very easy.  It certainly is virtually plug and play.
However, for an all on board battery installation the problem is there is very little, if any room to fit batteries. More on that a little later.
In this instance it did not matter as my customer is quite happy having a permanent trail car to provide the battery power.

The tender shell is easily removed by taking out the four screws that hold the shell to the body.  It simply then lifts off to expose the whole PnP socket assembly.

I located a point where I could carefully drill out an access hole under the floor for the connector cable for the trail car.  Be careful as the space is tight and any slip of the drill could damage the fitted PnP socket assembly.

I secured the cable to the underneath of the rear buffer beam with a loop made from two solder tags with one of the fitted screws. This will enable the loco to be returned to stock condition without leaving any tell tale signs of modification. The cable itself is one half of an RCS # ILC-S2 cable I sell.  These are quite small connectors.  Other types could be used if desired.

Next up was to solder a wire to position J1-5 for the P8 chuff signal.  The single black wire shown in the pic below. That is my only real grizzle.  It would have been nice to have had a screw terminal fitted.

The battery feed wires were connected to the battery #1 terminal shown on the extreme right of the pic.
Also remove the speaker plug shown here next to the on board voltage regulator on the far left of the socket assembly so it can be reconnected to the P8 speaker wires.

Then I simply plugged in the RCS # PRO-PnP ESC motor driver part.


Notice that all the Bachmann switches are accessible behind the sand boxes on the rear of the tender shell.  The sand boxes simply pull out for access.

The RCS Decoder part and the P8 sound together with the programming jack and volume control fit up inside the coal load.
I made a mistake locating the small styrene plate I glued in to hold the P8 controls.  The plate should be glued onto the back side the of the small fan stanchions so the I could actually insert the P8 programming plug.

Then I fabricated a sheet of 1 mm styrene to cover the wiring and keep it as neat as possible.

The ultra small 4 ch Planet 2.4 Ghz RX simply plugs in upside down on the decoder part on the LH side of the pic.
With the RCS # PRO-PnP ESC I supply two lightweight cables to connect the decoder lighting outputs and P8 motor reference voltage to the motor driver part that is plugged into the PnP socket assembly.
The coal load simply fits down snugly onto the top of the tender. The internals are easily accessible if you need to make any programming changes.
Bachmann also supply a similarly sized oil bunker if you prefer the loco to be an oil burner.

What to do about on board batteries. To be honest I don't really know.  I am loathe to dismantle it to fit batteries in the boiler.  I don't really know if that is even possible.
However, it may be possible to fit a small flat pack of four Li-Ion cells up under the roof and try and hide the wiring.  Then comes the problem of charging them.  Perhaps I will have to find that out in the future.

I have only been able to run the Climax on rollers but it is as smooth as any Bachmann loco I have ever tested.
To say the least I am very impressed.

At long last a Bachmann "James" has crossed my desk to have RCS battery R/C and MyLocosound installed.
As James is a tender engine with a quite large tender there is plenty of room for everything inside the tender.
The install will be in two parts.
After removing the tender shell the first thing I did was remove the small weights from the tender floor.



Once the weights were gone I cut off the two screw lugs from the floor with side cutters.



This was so the speaker could sit flat on the floor.



I used a square 50 mm speaker as that fitted just nicely.

I drilled out a hole pattern under the speaker and mounted it with 4 x small self tapping screws. I also drilled a 1/4" hole for the ON-OFF switch with the toggle mid way between two axles.



Next came four 3.5 mm holes for the tapped metal stanchions. Two each side midway between the axles. These will support the styrene platform that will hold the batteries and the R/C + sound.



Like this:



I am using 10 x ENELOOP AA hybrid cells as 12 volts is plenty for a realistic top speed and they fit neatly in the space.

Next up was the chuff timer. I used a regular small reed switch mounted in a styrene tube and supported at the correct height. Normally the reed switch I use works best end on to the magnets but this one had to be parallel.
The tender wheels are almost exactly half the size of the drivers so I used two small rare earth magnets super glued in place for 4 x chuffs per revolution of the loco drivers.



Here is the template for the styrene platform.



Part # 2 soon.
Second part follows.

I fabricated a 4 wire loco to tender cable with a plug and socket to make life simple when separating the two.
This pic shows where the cable exits the loco chassis.  I used heatshrink tubing to protect the wires.  The orange and grey wires solder to the two terminals on the back of the polarity switch after I removed the original track pick ups.





I used another thinnish sheet of styrene glued to the battery pack on which I could mount the three main components.



Then the assembly was mounted on the stanchions with 3 mm screws and lock washers and wired up.



Track testing produced an odd problem with the sound chuff timer.  I had used the front wheels of the tender upon which two Rare Earth magnets were mounted.  Unfortunately the center wheels sit very slightly lower then each end wheels.  This results in a slight rocking on the wheels and sometimes the front wheels do not make very good contact with the rails.  The chuff got a bit erratic.
The easy fix in future is to use the middle wheels for chuff timing.
As it was a bit difficult to redo the reed switch mounting I opted for another simple solution.
I used thin styrene shims under the axle bracket mounts to lift the centre wheels up a smidgin.
I removed the bracket screws cut a thin strip of shim just wide enough to fit under the bracket and marked where the screw holes should be.



Then I drilled out the screw holes



I slid the styrene shim into position and replaced the screws, then trimmed the styrene to fit.  Repeat for the other side.



So how does James perform?
Just like Thomas.  Nice and smooth just like Thomas. 12 volts is more than adequate for a quite fast top speed.
There is plenty of room in the loco for extra weights. 
Bravo Bachmann.

If I did it again I would possibly mount every thing in the loco and have just the speaker in the tender.

This week I finished off another Thomas battery R/C + sound conversion.
As usual the conversion went quite smoothly as I fitted my new RCS PRO-3 ESC + Planet R/C and MyLocosound.
First up take the body from the chassis by removing the 8 fixing screws.


Take care removing the body from the chassis.  Lift up the rear to clear and then slide forwards.  If you simply lift it up you may damage the plastic mechanism that makes the "eyes" swivel from side to side.  I advise owners to remove the front of Thomas and tape the "eyes" in the middle so that when you replace the front back in the boiler it is easier to line up the little levers behind the "eyes" with the slots they sit in.  Before refitting the front, stop the mechanism in the middle of the sideways movement.

There is no particular order for installing the parts.
I chose to start with installing the speaker in the coal bunker. Cut off the end bits of plastic from the "coal load" thus.


Then I glued the low profile Phoenix speaker under the load.


Next up I made a a baffle box using thin sheets of styrene cut to size and fit.


Then I fed the speaker wires down through a small hole in the bottom of the coal bunker. I replaced the coal load cover and turned my attention to installing an LED in the rear dummy light.  The LED legs are fed through the body shell and glued in place.  See outside pics at end of article


I had two 4 x cell AA size ENELOOP battery packs made up in flat and block configuration.  The total 9.6 volts is plenty fast enough for Thomas in the hands of the owners grandchildren.


The two different shapes were needed so they would fit as shown below.


The 2 x part RCS PRO-3 ESC/Decoder were mounted under the boiler top and on one side tank.  The 4 x channel Planet 2.4 GHz RX simply plugs into the decoder part.  Servo leads are not needed.


The new MyLocosound steam sound with mechanical chuff was mounted inside the other side tank.


The ON-OFF switch and charge jack are mounted on the rear buffer beam.  The yellow programing pushbutton is under the floor.


Various connecting wires were fed up through a 1/4" hole I drilled in the chassis floor.


I drilled out a 1/4" hole in the front of the dummy headlight.  Plus two 1 mm holes in the rear of the light to feed the LED legs through.


Two more 1 mm holes were drilled through the mudguard cover. I then cut off the flange on the bottom of the LED and fed the legs through the light. These legs were bent downwards so they could be fed through the mudguard as I gently pushed the LED into place.


This is how I set up the rear LED.


I also made up a mechanical chuff timer by mounting a small reed switch in a styrene tube and gluing it under the motor block.
I used 4 x Rare Earth magnets glued to the back of the middle driver.  Even though there is a lot of side play slop the magnets never miss a beat.


This particular conversion was also supplied with an auxiliary battery supply, charge jack and ON-OFF switch for mounting in a trail car. That should be enough for at least 5-6 hours run time.

The only other thing I would do is add weight to the front of the loco to balance the batteries. Thomas is actually quite light and can derail on uneven track.
I will use stick on wheel weights.

I have another Thomas here to convert to battery R/C.
Before I do the conversion I wanted to show readers how easy it is to do a simple modification to Thomas so he can run on Track Power or Trail Car battery power.

Following are three pics of how I would wire Thomas.

Take care removing the body from the chassis.
Lift the rear up and push forward to disengage the movable eye levers.

Then I drilled a suitable hole in the floor of the chassis.  Simply reach under the floor to switch from one to the other.

The first pic shows how I unsoldered the two sets of pick up wires from the little pcb on the end of the motor.
Then I kept them joined together and added an extension for each colour so they could reach the switch.  The joins were covered in heat shrink tube.  The thicker black parts.
The extensions go to one end of the switch.



Next I added two new wires from the little pcb on the end of the motor to be connected to the centre terminals of the switch.



This pic shows how I drilled a hole in the rear crossbeam to allow a two wire connector cable to be fed through and up into the loco.
These two wires were connected to the other end of the switch.



Tuck the wires out of the way and refit the body.

To make life simple replacing the little levers for the eyes in the slots on the actuating mechanism, I removed the face and taped the eyes in the middle.
Then when the body is back on it is much easier to get the levers in the slots.

I hope that helps.

I will post the battery R/C + MyLocosound conversion later this week.

Any one interested in how I did it can read up on the article here:

http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/aff/35/aft/119543/afv/topic/Default.aspx

I have recently converted a new Large Scale Thomas to battery R/C.

This thread at LSC shows how I did it:

http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=12432

What a great looking loco.  Nicely made.  Just runs way to fast at 12 volts.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/35/postid/100015/view/topic/Default.aspx

Really nice running loco.

I understand the sound chuff is once again optical.

Can someone please tell me if the signal is the same as the K-27?
Or:
Has it been inverted so that it works with most sound systems, without requiring any additional components?

I have just finished another Bachmann K-27 battery R/C + Phoenix P5 sound install.

This was done slightly differently again.
I fabricated a small sheet of 1.5 mm thick styrene to mount the ON-OFF switch, Charge Jack, Phoenix volume control and programming jack.

Here are the dimensions I used:



The plate is mounted under the front lip below the front of the coal load and avoids drilling any holes in the tender shell or chassis.



I used the RCS BIK-U3+VC which has a built in volume control switch.  However, you could use any sort of switch you wished.

RCS has now finalised the way we recommend installing battery R/C in the K-27.
Firstly we will show how to do it at the lowest possble cost using the fitted TRACK - BATTERY switch as an ON-OFF switch for the system.
No soldering is needed.
This method is very basic and not designed for using a sound system.
You will need to drill 1 x 5/16" hole to mount the CHG-JACK.
Parts needed are:
1 x # TX-4  4 function transmitter handpiece.
1 x # PnP-3  Plug'n'Play R/C controller.
1 x # CHG-JACK to access the batteries for charging.
1 x # Y-CABLE to put two 7.2 volt batery packs in series for 14.4 volts.
2 x    7.2 volt 2400 mah SuB NiCd batteries.

We recommend you read the RCS PnP-3 instructions along with the following procedure.
http://www.rcs-rc.com/PDF/Battery_RC/RCS/Instructions/PnP_3_TX_24.pdf

The first thing to do is remove the body shell of the tender so the chassis looks like this.


Then we removed all the track pick ups and associated wiring.


The speaker was mounted.


Then the batteries and # CHG-JACK were mounted in the tender shell. We used regular silicone tile and gutter sealant.
The batteries were placed in series using the # Y-CABLE.  the red and black wires were then connected to the battery sideof the # CHG-JACK.


The controller side of the # CHG-JACK was connected to the BATTERY + and - terminals on the socket pcb.  Then we remounted the K-27 body shell.


Lastly we mounted the # RX-8 metal cased receiver under the coal load and glued the antenna wire around the edge with dabs of silicone adhesive.


We will show our prefered way of doing an installation for Phoenix P5 + P5T in another thread.

Fellow Large Scalers.

Now that I have actually installed a number of my PnP-3 battery R/C control systems in the K-27 I thought it prudent to steer anyone who is interested to the Actual RCS/EVO instructions and Forum topics with pics of how I did it.
Firstly the RCS Instructions.
http://www.rcs-rc.com/PDF/Battery_RC/RCS/Instructions/PnP_3_TX_24.pdf
Now for the EVO version.
http://www.rcs-rc.com/PDF/Battery_RC/EVO/Instructions/PnP_3.pdf

Please be advised they are both quite big files.

For forum topics with pictures go here:
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,4478.0.html
.....and here:
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,4945.0.html

My initial impressions of the K-27 are positive, notwithstanding the various mechanical problems that have manifested themselves.
So far all the electrics work just as I expected them to.
Bachmann have got the socket pcb right.  I designed the RCS/EVO PnP-3 battery R/C controllers AFTER I actually got to see an example of the loco and with the help of Dave Goodson.
I have no issue with the chuff timer as I have incorporated a couple of small components on the pcb to make it work as designed for a correctly timed chuff with any sound system.
The socket pcb is just fine for battery R/C.
There is no need to change the socket pcb except for the possible addition of a 3-4 amp Polyswitch® after the TRACK - BATTERY switch.  An alteration which would permit the TRACK - BATTERY switch to be used as the ON - OFF switch and simplify the installation even more.

Today I have installed battery R/C into another K-27.  This time a little differently.

My customer has mounted two speakers inside the loco body.  One under the smoke stack facing UP.  The smoke unit has been removed.  The other speaker is in the firebox facing down.  Pix to follow.

This meant I did not need to mount a speaker in the tender.

First up was to remove the weights.
I made it easy again by cutting off  the excess screw thread with a cutting wheel.


Then I broke off all the speaker mounts with a pair of pliers and a knife blade.


Once all the plastic had been removed I smoothed off the floor with sandpaper.
[i,g]http://www.rcs-rc.com/pics/Bachmann-K27v2/02_Smooth_floor_s.jpg[/img]

This allowed the battery packs to sit flush on the tender floor where I glued them into position with Silicone roof and gutter sealant.


Next I fitted the RCS # Y-CABLE which puts the two 7.2 volt SubC 2400 mah NiCd battery packs in series to get 14.4 volts.
Then I mounted the PnP-3 on the Bachmann socket pcb and the rest of the Phoenix sound components on the rear of the tender floor.


I am trying a different way of mounting the antenna in this model.  Don Sweet has achieved good range by simply coiling the antenna up in the coal load.  I glued the antenna around the rim of the coal load with a tag on the end to connect it to the matching tag on the tender body shell.  See pic # 12.


Next I mounted a two way cable on the front of the tender truck to carry the speaker output through to the loco. This connects with a matching connector on the loco.
Bachmann have very neatly made this possible by mounting the connection pcb securely in place.  It was very easy to remove the screws on the tender steps etc and place the cable beneath the pcb and the tender floor.


The RCS RX-8 receiver was glued in position just in front of the rear support stanchion.  The antenna was fed through a small hole I drilled in the body, shortened and mounted on the outside where the rest is connected by a screw.
The charge jack and Phoenix programming jack were both mounted under the water filler hatch.


The two wire plug was inserted into the PnP-3 as shown and the Orange chuff wire fed down to the rear for connecting with the Phoenix P5 sound.  I removed the White smoke unit wire as it was no needed.


The rest of the battery power supply and sound system wiring was connected up.  This is mostly simply a plug in operation.  There are a number of screw terminal connections.  The chuff wire and speaker connections required soldering.


The remaining connections from the top of the tender shell were added next.


The RX-8 cable was plugged into the PnP-3 and she was all buttoned up and ready to go. 
The antenna connection can be seen upper middle in the pic.


Sound system and performance testing will take place on Tuesday when the owner collects his pride and joy.
If the speakers in the loco idea is successful I will try and write it up.

Once again. 
Congratulations Bachmann.  The K-27 is a pleasure to work on.

I now have the prototype pcb to hand for the soon to be released RCS PnP-3 R/C controller.
This proto was assembled last night and bench tested successfully.

Today a K-27 arrived from my good customer Bill Wellington to get the RCS treatment.  Plus plug in Phoenix P5 sound.

The whole point of this installation is to achieve a reliable smooth running battery R/C K-27 without making any changes to the onboard electronics as supplied.
Whether that can be achieved remains to be seen, but I am hopeful.

I have made a start and will document the installation as I proceed.
To date I have mounted the speaker, removed the tender weights and mounted the two 7.2 volt SubC NiCd packs I am going to use to power the loco.
Once the silicone adhesive has set up I will take the first pics and publish them here.

BTW.
I bench tested the K-27 on a short test track I have here.  It runs superbly. Absolutely no sign of the up and down bouncing displayed by the K-27 in the U tube video currently being used as a promotion for a "pay to be a member" LS forum.

The K 27 looks like being a pretty straightforward battery R/C install using RCS.



The TRACK - BATTERY switch on the K 27 Super Socket is not wired the same as the AristoCraft socket.  Unlike the AristoCraft switch, the Bachmann TRACK - BATTERY switch completely isolates the on board BATTERY terminals from the track in TRACK position.  This is an effective battery supply ON - OFF switch.

We used an RCS # ILC-2. 

 

These provide enough parts for four locos.  The cost is about US$ 4 per loco plus the trail car and battery R/C.  Many operators will already have their trail cars set up so installation will be a snip!!!

Anyway, simply feed an RCS ILC-2 connector lead through the rear of the tender and connect it to the BATTERY terminals on the socket pcb.  Set the switch to BATTERY and you are all set to go.  If the loco runs backwards simply reverse the two wires at the BATTERY terminal on the socket pcb.

We found 14.4 volts gives an ideal top speed.  If you want to go faster use more volts.

In the next day or so I shall offer up some on board installation options.  These will range from very easy to quite simple.

For those that might be interested on how I went about it, I have published the info at MLS. 
http://www.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=44522

It is quite long.