Fitting R/C to 3 cylinder Accucraft Shay

[beavercreek]

I have an old two cylinder LS shay (Mich Cal) with 40 mhz R/C and it works OK (except that the reverser servo has always had a stripped cog). It has an aircraft joystick controller (which I do not like)
I will be upgrading that to 2.4GHZ handset controlled system.

BUT
I now also have an LS Accucraft three cylinder shay (also Mich Cal) which is manual. I wish to R/C that as well but where as the 2 cylinder has the handy bunker for all the R/C gubbins, the 3 cylinder one has the bunker as an auxiliary water tank.

Some will tell me that the shay is a nice slow loco and does not need R/C...I have 10% (1:10) gradients and need to be able to throttle back when going down the decline and I do not always want to 'chase' the loco....even at a slow pace...to cut back or increase the speed.
I also would like to 'shunt' her around in the Beaver Creek station yards.

Has anyone attempted this R/C conversion or actually owns one already R/C-ed.

 

[Rhinochugger]

Mike

I haven't run mine for a while. WHen I bought it I was told that R/C was not possible - well that's always debatable.

At the show this year, a couple of people intimated that there would be enough room somehow, but I think the real issue is the lack of throttle control.

It's full ahead / full astern, but I don't think it would run away on the gradients due to the gearing - unless you now know better O0 O0

 

[beavercreek]

Hi Rhino
It is possible as I have seen it at a show a couple of years ago (but was not even thinking of doing live steam when I saw it!)
There is a throttle and a reverser (although with the shay the reverser can also be used like a throttle as I use that method on my old 2 cylinder jobbie. It works pretty well with a fair bot of control.

 

[opabert]

It is not difficult to build in R/C. The only thing you have to do is to remove is the forward/reverse lever. In stead of the lever you have to attache the servo.
If you remove the spring from the throttle stick in the transmitter, then you have full control of the speed, both forward and backward.
I attached a few pictures of the cab of my shay.

The battery pack is placed at the left side of the cab. I taped the servo on the floor with double sided tape and the receiver is taped to the front of the water tank.

 

[beavercreek]

Thank you opabert for the photos. It looks very cramped in there!
So you are using the water tank to actually supply....water.
I was thinking of not using the water tank for its intended use and put the receiver, the battery and the servos in there.

What battery are you using?

 

[opabert]

When the gas tank is fitted in the cab, the hot boiler will warm up the gas tank and so it will not freeze. In the Shay the gas tank is fitted in the water tank and not in the cab. When you don't fill the water tank with water, the gas tank will freeze and the fire will cease. So if you place the batteries, receiver and servos in the water tank, you have to wrap those things in plastic so that you can fill the tank with water.
Besides, how do you want to make a connection from the servos into the cab?
Another picture of the throttle servo:

Here you can see how simple it is to fit the servo and to connect it with the throttle valve.

There is enough room in the cab when you use micro servos, p.e. Robbe 11 mm - Nano servos. The 2.4 Ghz receiver is even smaller. So I recommend to fit the servos and receiver in the cab.

I fitted a second servo for the whistle:

The whistle (from Reppingen):

I use a 4 pack of AA NiMh rechargeable batteries.

 

[beavercreek]

When the gas tank is fitted in the cab, the hot boiler will warm up the gas tank and so it will not freeze. In the Shay the gas tank is fitted in the water tank and not in the cab.

My two shays, the two cylinder and the three cylinder, have the gas tanks at the side in the cab. The three cylinder has a water tank in the bunker which has a manual pump for refilling the boiler. The pump takes up a fair bit of room in the bunker.

 

[maxi-model]

You have the earlier version of the 3 cyl' Mike. The later version has a much larger gas tank in the oil/water tank and also has an adjustable steam oil dispenser. As the gas tank has been removed from the footplate area there is more room for r/c gubbins. Mine has also been fitted with a bayonet refiller valve to allow boiler refilling while running as it no longer has the hand pump fitted as this has been displaced by the gas tank. Max.

 

[beavercreek]

Ahhh that will be it Max.....Interesting....I was wondering why I seem to have a different example.

It was 'old' brand new. A guy in the States had bought it some years ago and had never steamed it. He is now going over to 5" gauge stuff so got rid of all of his 'G' scale.

I have a 'Goodall' valve on top of my boiler for refilling on the go.

One thing though, I do not have any external pop off safety valve only a large hole (no screw thread) where one might be...

 

[maxi-model]

Normally the safety valve lives under the sand dome, with just a small hole in the top of the sand dome to let excess steam escape. If the safety valve is missing then I do not see how you will steam it ??? A pop off type safety valve is not a standard fitting but they are popular in the US. Max.

 

[beavercreek]

My dome (just before the cab) has a nearly 5mm wide hole in a flanged top (perfectly painted edge etc).
The hole then goes down about 2.5cm to the top of the boiler.
There are three small holes, two are threaded and one seems to be just painted around the 5mm hole.
I am now presuming that the `painted` small hole might be the safety valve.....I was expecting something protruding like on my 2 cylinder shay?

Here are a couple of photos showing the area.


Showing flat top



holes in dome

 

[maxi-model]

Yep,inside there is the safety valve. Don't ask me how to get the sand dome off, never tried. Those three threaded little holes are for the cast brass whistle and a couple of other stop cocky type thingies. Check the bags of bits that comes with this loco for those. I reckon the "redundant" water/oil tank will be your best bet for placing the R/C bits. The live steam bug seems to have bitten ? I warned you. Have fun with this one, great loco. You have got to get the Climax. 3 cyl and this the best running locos they have made IMHO. Max.

 

[Shawn]

Mike the dome should just unscrew off. Its the same as my Forney. Try twisting it from the top but you might have to disconnect the pipe first. I would get a pop valve eventually. They do work nice and saves on wasted steam. To save on space I would us a Lithium Ion battery. You can get them fairly small and maybe attached under the roof.
Hehe I knew you would catch the bug.

 

[beavercreek]

Mike the dome should just unscrew off. Its the same as my Forney. Try twisting it from the top but you might have to disconnect the pipe first. I would get a pop valve eventually. They do work nice and saves on wasted steam. To save on space I would us a Lithium Ion battery. You can get them fairly small and maybe attached under the roof.
Hehe I knew you would catch the bug.

Yes.....that live steam bug....bites and won't let go! I have now the two LS shays and because of my gradients, if I was to get another steamer if would have to be the Accucraft Climax that Max mentioned in a previous post.
Other steamers (except for the little Regner geared locos) might have problems pulling a train up the inclines (and stopping runaways down them) my options of expanding my LS loco roster are a bit limited (the 'management' might think this a good thing!!) .

 

[JRinTawa]

Mike, a couple of the guys here have started using RCS transmitters and RCS's matching receivers. Why I raise this is the reciever is much smaller than the one's I've used and may help where space is a premium.

 

[beavercreek]

Hi John
I have sent a pm off to Tony Walsham