Inspection of the ToyState Christmas steamer

Last July I bought a Toy State Christmas train set for only 10 euro's (see: Christmas in July). The engine itself did run well in my outdoor layout. It had no problem with the turnouts as long as it runs straight forward. However the engine made a howling sound. There were some suggestions on the forum that this could be a fan inside the locomotive. However as the locomotive was not able to pull all the cars from the set on the outdoor layout I suspect it could be a problem with the gears.
A test run on the track oval of the set did not show improvement; the engine could not pull all cars. Sometimes it stopped while the motor was running making. Running or standing still the engine makes the same howling sound.

So... time to open the engine!

The start; remove Santa figure and unscrew the screws at the bottom

Remove front bogie

Remove upper part

The switch can easily be removed

The motor is slides in the gearbox. It can be removed by pulling it out gently

The motor has a small gear wheel that connects to the gearbox

Backside view.
The connector cable that runs to the coal tender (with battery's).

Front view

View from top

After removing the motor (just gently pull it out of the gearbox) it looks like this:

Than remove front cylinders:

 

And remove gliders from the driving gear:

Removing the topside of the chassis shows the complete gearbox. It is fixed on the rear axle.
The gearbox itself is snapped together.

That's all...

So, we know how to dismantle the engine. Putting it together is just in the opposite order as shown above (and it works as these pictures were actually taken while putting the engine back together...).

Now... there was no fan or whatsoever present in the engine. Electric current flows from the connector cable to the switch at the side of the engine. From the switch two cables (orange and white) go to the motor. From the motor two cables (yellow and white) lead to the headlight. White cables connected to the switch make the polarity change (back and forward).
It is the gearbox that makes the howling sound. I believe the construction of the gearbox is not very solid and (worn out?) gears slide a bit over the axles (like the older Fleischmann locomotives did).
I could try to open it and see if I am right about that.  Perhaps I can replace the gearbox for a different one. Or do a total bash of the engine making something completely different from it and use the cars behind a standard LGB Stainz... Let's not forget the whole set costed 10 euro's. So we will see ;-)

Construction of the station building part IV

Two garden LED lights that have been in service in my garden the last year will become the interior lights for the building. The upper part of the light fixtures themselves will be used as they hold the solar panel. They will be placed on top of the building to collect sunlight.
After opening the light fixture it is clear that it used a 1,2 V 40 mAh battery. The power switches were rusty (but these are actually quit obsolete as I never used those) and will be removed. Considering the rusty state of the battery cells it will be a good idea to replace those with reachable AA or AAA cells.

The wires from the solar panel to the circuit board will be lengthened. As mentioned above the fixtures with panel will be placed on top of the building (disguised as chimneys) and the longer wires run to the circuit boards that will be placed in the building, together with the new batteries, in a way it is easy to access for repair or maintenance.

Opening the light fixture

The battery shows it is a 1,2 V cell. It will be replaced by a 1,2 AA or AAA size cell

Old cell removed. New one shall be connected with wires to B+ and B-
The solar panel will be connected to S+ and S- (here still connected to red and black wire).
The white wires went to the obsolete switch and are now connected together, without the switch.

Lengthened wires connected.

The LED light fixtures are than placed on the roof using hotglue. I added an extra layer of hotglue on the 'chimney's to give more grip if I make the chimney of of cement or Milliput (see later on).

 

I carved the foam to give the cement more grip on the surface.

Roof tile pattern was 'sculpted using an old screwdriver. There is not only a pattern but also some relief in it. 

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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:

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Christmas in July!

When is the best time to buy Christmas ornaments? In the summer!

I bought this Toy State #5430 "Christmas Magic Express" secondhand for the price of a burger and a soda, taking the risk it won't work. I was aware the quality of these sets is not very good. Mostly they survive 1 holiday season.
But I figured I could always chop the engine and place a LGB motorblock in it or use the cars with another engine.
The wheelbase fits the tracks perfectly. The engine runs on 4x C-type 1,5 volts batteries (6 volts total). The dining car and the pumpcar have a light that is powered by a 1,5 volts AA type battery. The tender can play 19 Christmas tunes (but I never came further than 3 as my ears were protesting).

During the first testrun with locomotive runs without any problems on the layout. Though... it does make the same sound as a vacuum cleaner...

 

Testrun with the complete train was no success unfortunately. The engine could not pull all cars through some of the curves. The train gets stuck. This is most likely caused by the two animated cars; the moving bear conductor and the pumping toy soldier. The animated figures are connected to the axles of the cars to make them move. This is causing resistance on the axles and the wheels start to brake because of this. Also, both these cars seems to have a slight bit wider wheelbase on the axles driving the animated figures. The wheels do not run as freely as the other cars. I guess this can be fixed on 2 ways: somehow making a less wider wheelbase and if that does not work, try to drive the figures in another way, for instance with a little electric motor.
An other solution could be to build a motor block in the engine (what was my plan B anyway).
This will make it more powerful and will fix the vacuum cleaner sound as well. Not sure yet what to do...


Some more pictures of the trainset:

Complete train

 

 The engine. It can play 19 Christmas tunes...not very beautiful

Caboose. The bear "motion figure" steps from left to right and back

Dining car

Handcar. The spinning of the wheels make the toy soldier pump.

Box Toy State #5430

Everything complete and in very good shape

Bit warm for Santa...

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Solar powered railcar Part VI

Testrun

Last night I made several test runs. After removing the useless diode (see part V) the car did had power enough to run its rounds. However the space between the front wheels (motorized axle) was a bit to wide causing the wheels to block in the curves. This was fixed by adjusting the distance between the wheels a bit.

First video: an early test run with flickering headlight (loose contact) and loosing one of the sliding doors! Sorry for the horrible sound...

 

Later that evening it finally runs well, especially considering the very moderate 1,5 volts power source! Again sorry for the sound...

 

Next (and final) step; windows and final detailing...

Solar powered railcar Part V

Some progress on the electrics. It is not my most favorite part as I lack the knowledge of it. It is trail and error for me.

As planned I connected the motor directly to the battery and added a small switch to turn the motor on and off. Due to the fact I misunderstood some good advise of a railway modeller on the Garden Railway Forum I had placed a diode (wrongly!) between the battery and the motor to avoid unwanted discharge of the battery. However this was a complete useless thing to do. The diode had no function on that spot at all... it only let the voltage drop with 0,7 volts, causing too low voltage to run.

The diode had actually made more sense between the panel and the battery cell ifI had chosen to charge the cell directly from the panel (which I did not as I let it charge using the connection on the board). When charged directly from the panel it is also better to use a Schottky diode instead of the BY diode I used as the Schottky has a way lower voltage drop (0,2 volts). Trail and error!
 
A 1,5 volts 2500 mAh battery cell is used (the original cell that came with the set was 600 mAh). Hopefully this will extend running time (but also will extend charging time). If not, or when charging takes way too long or don't charge at all, I will replace it with the 600 mAh again.Although I found the LED a bit too blue-isch I used it as headlight because, well... I had it.
Perhaps a bit of coloring will get a more warmer color and if not it can be replaced after all.

Overview; be aware: the green diode is REMOVED (see text)

LED in place

Switch for the LED glued in place. The motor switch will be next to it.

Overview on how the parts fit together

Charging up in the first June sun

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Solar powered railcar Part III

Chassis

The plywood parts of the Solar House kit turned out to be very handy as a support for the motor and gearbox..With a bit cutting and filing all fits nicely. This base is 72,5 mm square. I will use a similar part and a sheet of balsa wood that I have lying around to expand the chassis. It will become somewhere between 130 or 150 mm in lenght, just what looks fine and runs well.
I just use plastic LGB wheels while I had those left over and to keep it as leight as possible.

Also made an axle mount out of styrene sheets. Again all very basic and light weight.

A little video of the test run which was made without the solar panel. It was powered by a normal 1,2 Volt battery for testing (I could not discover how much the capacity of this battery was).

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