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Remote Control and Servos?

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John J

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Howdy Live steam Dudes.


I am thinking of remote controlling my USA 25 Ton Crane in my MOW train.

I need control for Hook Up and Down, Boom Up and Down and Rotate.

What is the least Expensive remote that would give me these parameters.?

Can the servos you use for you Steam Engines be used to do continuous 360 rotation?


Can you recommend a system, Controller and servos That could be adapted to what I want to do

Thanks

JJ
 
#2 ·
Hey JJ,


I'll tell you what I do know for sure witch is limited, but is personal experience.

Yes servos can be bought or altered for continuous rotation. I'm not sure about reversability I'm thinking this could probably be done on any of the channels that tie to the joysticks on the TX.

As far as a cheap system I'll endorse the Spektrum DX6i You can get a TX and RX set for about $160 and so far mine has worked flawlessly and with little instruction reading! The servos would be a separate buy for each individual application. I've used 2 of the 6 available channels to briefly remote control my Ruby before I took it all apart. (see my bash thread)

Anyhow, those are the answers I fell qualified to give. I'm sure some tech guys will jump in with better info. Can't wait to see you build thread!
 
#3 ·
Can the servos  you use for you  Steam Engines  be used to  do  continuous  360  rotation?
Not quite, but yes, there are servos available for continuous rotation. Check out Servocity, who sell all kinds of pan/tilt/track systems for cameras, security, etc.
 
#4 ·
Are you planing on using the servos for direct power to the winches and cab rotation? If so you would need large servos with metal gear trains to provide the necessary power and to withstand the strain and you still may not have enough power to handle your loads. Any servo can be easily modified to run continuously with the added benefit that the stick for that channel will control the speed and direction. Servos modified like this make very good drive units for small RC boats. If you wanted real power to do actual (scale) work a better solution might be to use a separate DC motor for each winch and rotation with a direction/speed control for each motor.
 
#6 ·
You can buy servos that rotate 360 degrees, or you can hack any servo to do the same.

Google "servo hack" or "hack servo" for thousands of how to websites and youtube videos.

So many people were hacking servos a few years ago the servo companies decided to offer them.

Because they are "special" they sell for a little bit more.
 
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