Last Saturday, I happened to aquire an Aristo-Craft Milwaukee Road coach at a price I couldn't refuse. Nice coach, older one with 3 axle trucks but I had nothing to go with it so I really thought about selling it.
Then, came ebay.... I saw an Aristo-Craft Milwaukee Road Doodlebug in a auction. The seller was from Prescott, even. Had no idea who he was but I called and asked if I won the item, could I pick it up with no shipping costs. Yup, sure can.
So, long story short, I won the Doodlebug. Now the coach has something to pull it. I picked it up yesterday, took it apart and converted it to battery power. Raw batteries at this point with no controller. It runs just fine on 14.8 Li-ions and I'm getting 3 1/2 hours of run time on a 2200 mah battery. Just take the roof off to change batteries.
Made intial coach pulling tests with all 3 wheelsets in each truck. Doodlebug wasn't real happy with that so I took the center wheelset out of the trucks and it runs wonderfully.
Rather than disconnect the interior lights completely, I unsoldered one of the leads from the OEM bulbs and replaced them with four 5mm bright white LED's with resistors and a diode to prevent LED "Phffffftttttt" when the polarity reverses when I get the controller installed for full directional control.
The Doodlebug is a very smooth running piece. It's the newer model with BB trucks.
It's a real nice addition to the PCSRR
Then, came ebay.... I saw an Aristo-Craft Milwaukee Road Doodlebug in a auction. The seller was from Prescott, even. Had no idea who he was but I called and asked if I won the item, could I pick it up with no shipping costs. Yup, sure can.
So, long story short, I won the Doodlebug. Now the coach has something to pull it. I picked it up yesterday, took it apart and converted it to battery power. Raw batteries at this point with no controller. It runs just fine on 14.8 Li-ions and I'm getting 3 1/2 hours of run time on a 2200 mah battery. Just take the roof off to change batteries.
Made intial coach pulling tests with all 3 wheelsets in each truck. Doodlebug wasn't real happy with that so I took the center wheelset out of the trucks and it runs wonderfully.
Rather than disconnect the interior lights completely, I unsoldered one of the leads from the OEM bulbs and replaced them with four 5mm bright white LED's with resistors and a diode to prevent LED "Phffffftttttt" when the polarity reverses when I get the controller installed for full directional control.
The Doodlebug is a very smooth running piece. It's the newer model with BB trucks.
It's a real nice addition to the PCSRR
