The Power Van.
In order that I can run my LGB engines without track power, I have converted one of the LGB Toy-Train vans to carry the control and power supply.
Each of my LGB locomotives has an accessory socket on the rear, through which I can supply power to the engine, all of the direction lights, sounds and smoke units work as normal this way.
I chose the Toy-Train van because it was relatively cheap and I was about to
drill holes in it. I didn't want to buy a £50-£60 wagon to promptly cut up! I
also figured that suitably painted, the van could run well with either coaches
or wagons.
My initial idea was that this project should cost as little as possible, since initially it would be my prototype. I used a 27MHz radio set from an old r/c car, two of the car 7.2v NiCad batteries and the speed control from the car too. A spare r/c battery pack released its connector which fits the LGB socket just fine - as long as you remember which way up it goes.
First results had good and bad points. The batteries proved that 14.4v was ample for the job in mind, good top speed and plenty of power to pull the trains. I was getting at least two hours run from a single charge. The bad points stemmed from the control system - the speed control was either on or off (although reversible) and the radio glitched constantly.
The first improvement was a GRS speed controller. This does away with the servo and rheostat control and replaces it with a solid state unit. The r/c receiver power is also fed via the controller, removing the need for separate batteries.
The
r/c aerial was routed through a piece of copper pipe and taken onto the van
roof. The end of the aerial wire was soldered to the pipe, thus not reducing
it's effectiveness. This has been glued to the roof of the van and the whole
painted matt black. The rest of the van was finished in Rover Damask Red, as are
my other coaching stock.
The glitching was still a problem however, worse some days than others and for no apparent reason. Finally, more outlay resulted in a Brandbright servo smoother which has banished the problem completely. It's worth noting that a Mac5 controller would have done the same job and now for the same cost in a quarter of the space.
As the paintwork and especially the transfers had become a little shabby on the Power Van, I decided it was time for a makeover.
In line with my wagon building efforts, I used Plasticote Chocolate Matte spray with acrylic black for the highlights. The lettering is some DJB dry rub down transfers plus work with a white gel-pen, all covered with a clear acrylic matt top coat for protection.
The roof is white primer from a car paints range, being a primer it is matt.
I took the opportunity to replace one coupling with an Accucraft chopper.
Although the radio receiver remains within the van, all of the other equipment has now been removed as my last loco using the van has been converted to on-board batteries. The van is now free to be marshalled in any train.