TheStantonCab - 2
Thecab is the radio transmitter. Itactsas thebasestation. You
needonecab to runone train. Foreach trainyouwant to run, you
need togetahandheldcab. There isnobasestationorbooster.
Inside the loco, you install theirdecoderpackage. Itconsistsof the
Stanton radio receiverandastandardDCCdecoder thatarepack-
aged inonehardwiredunit. IhaveonewithaTsunami TSU-1000
sounddecoder. TheyalsoofferanNCEdecoderoption.
Youcan run itoffpower from the rails,or install abattery. I already
haveanEasyDCCsystem, so I amnot interested inpowering the
Stantonsystem from railpower. Iwant it for thebatterypower
option. TheStantonbatterysystemcan takea tricklecharge from
the rails, akey feature that someothersdonothave.
This isnext revolution in indoormodel railroading. Theoutdoor
guyshavebeendoing it fora longtime.Withsmallbatterypacks
becomingavailable,wecanall join in.
Myfirst installationwas inanOScaleMason4-4-0producedby
SMR trains.When Iput thecomponentsnext to theengine, I real-
ized that itallwasnotgoing tofit inoron the tender.But Iwas
concerned thatputting thedecoder/radio receiver in theboiler
wouldhurt the radio reception. I got someadvice from theS-Cab
Yahoogroup thatencouragedme toproceed.
I took it slow, andmadesureeverythingwascorrectas Iwent
along. First I removed theQSIdecoderalready in theengine. I
installed thenewdecoder in theboiler,withaspeaker in thefire-
box. Thebatteryandchargingcircuitareon topof themotor in
the tender. IusedayellowLED for theheadlight. It isnotasbright
asan incandescent lamp,butmay lookcloser incolor to theactual
prototypeoil lamps that theyused in1860.
Iwas successful, andnow theengine is runninggreatwithbat-
terypower.Huzzah!Radio receptionhasnotbeenaproblem.
Theengine runsvery smoothlywith the steady supplyofpower.
Thishasbeenexactlywhat I expected frombatterypower. Yes, I
amchuffed!
Thisenginehadahabitof shortingat thepilot truckonsomeof
mytightercurves. Since it isa tenderdrive, Idecided tonotuse
anyof thepickups in theengine,but relyonlyon theall-wheel
pickup in the tender. Ihadpreviouslyaddedpickups toallwheels
in the tender, so theenginecan run tender-only if Iwant. Thanks
to thebattery, Idon'tneed touseall thosepickups in theengine.
That simplified thewiring taskabit.
Italsosoundsprettygood too.Putting thespeaker in thefirebox
helpsamplify thesound.
Withseveraldozenhoursofoperation, Ihave the followingobser-
vations. So far, thebatterysystem is90%ofwhat Iexpected. I
noted that if I runaheavy trainand it stallson thegrade (Ihave
someveryslightgradeson the layout just tokeepmyengineerson
their toes), Ihave to reset the throttlespeed tozeroand thengive
it the"gas" toget itmoving.
Probably thebiggest shortcoming in thedesign is that there isno
batterychargegauge. Soyouhaveno ideawhenyouare running
2
2: The battery power supply and battery fill most of the
space on top of themotor in the tender. It took a full pile of
wood to hide it.
MRH-Apr2014
