RC control using the RailBoss Plus

Some while ago I dug up my trailer car with build-in RC unit and battery pack. It was still in one of the moving boxes after moving to this house more than 2 years ago.

The trailer car was constructed in 2011 using a ToyTrain freight car. The idea was to use the car to power and control my LGB locomotives. This way I did not have to convert the locomotives to battery power themselves. The locomotives can still be used for track power as I did not remove the sliding contacts and the contacts on the wheels. The locomotives can be powered and RC controlled using the plugs that are often used to power the coach interior lights

The RC controller is the RailBoss Plus controller from G-Scale Graphics (I just notice on their website it is no longer available as it is replaced by the newer RailBoss 4 unit). The transmitter and receiver are a 4 channel 2,4 Ghz set bought at HobbyKing. The battery is a 12 volts 2300 mAh battery pack (in this case from Conrad).
The battery can be charged by plugging a charging device in to the charging jack at the underside of the car. A little cable from the head side of the car connects it to the locomotive.
All electronics where nicely hidden out of side behind a plywood partition. So when the doors of the car are opened you can not notice the electronics. A switch in the partition could switch it off (to charging position) or on (to RC operation). The switch was easily accessible through the car sliding door.

Here is a little video on it from 2011:

Testing

The first thing that had to be replaced was the battery pack. Perhaps I had overcharged it after all those years but the fact was there was no power in it what so ever and it turned brownish at some spots... So a new battery was placed.
The second part that need replacement was the connector cable towards the locomotives. Back in 2011 I had chosen to use a little connector for aesthetic reasons. But I soon found out that these little connectors are not very sturdy and came loose after connecting and de-connecting locomotives several times. Also I had to construct an adapter cable from the LGB locomotive outlets to the mini connector. So now I made a simpler cable using standard hobby plugs that connect easily with the LGB plugs and sockets in (most) LGB locomotives. I had to construct 1 adapter cable to one of my Stainz locomotives as this model was issued with a different type of connector factory-wise.

So here it is now:

And here it goes:

July 25th 2019

And here is a little video of the running session:

-o-