Remote Control and Battery for Fowler

Finally after very long time and a lot of frustrations my second loco can now move under its own power. The Fowler F 30 from Essel Enginering has been fitted with a new control system and battery. Now traffic can finally take off to new heights on the 1/19 scale model of the 600 mm gravel line at Nystrup Gravel.

For the real Nystrup Gravel company the arrival of the Fowler in 1934 meant an increase in capacity. The Fowler could pull longer trains than the smaller Danish built locos.

As delivered the Essel Engineering Fowler was equipped with a huge battery pack and manual control via toggle switches in the cab and chimney. That's probably not too bad on a garden railway with few directional changes and long or continuous runs. On a very short layout manual control is (in my view, at least) unpractical, even if the chimney speed control on the model worked fine. Having had good experience with the RC equipment built into my little Lister it was my plan to fit the Fowler with RC gear from RCTrains. Despite being quite a patient guy, I simply gave up waiting for an RC-receiver. Having been e-mailing back and forth with RCTrains regarding the order since July 2022 without any results to show for the effort, I looked for an alternative. Now the Fowler has been fitted with a Maxi unit from Loco Remote.

Testfitting the Maxi unit next to the motor.

While the RCTrains equipment works with a hand held RC transmitter and receivers in the locomotives much like the better known RC cars and planes, the Loco Remote design is based on a unit placed in the locomotive and a controller interface generated by the unit on a Wi-Fi device like a phone or tablet. Quite clever actually, meaning you only have to purchase the unit for the locomotive as most people have a Wi-Fi enabled phone these days. The Maxi unit consist of three prints with components assembled into a single 'brick' to be connected to battery and motor.  

Originally a huge battery pack protruded into the cab. Here seen before I dismantled it and the original speed controller (seen to the left of the motor).

The battery pack in the Fowler originally consisted of no less than 6 AA-batteries. A small layout like mine has no use for locos with neither the power or endurance as a garden railway and I cut down the battery size to a single rechargable 9 V battery. How I dismantled the Fowler was described in this blog post. I fitted the new Li-ion 9 V battery between the frames mounted transversely between the axles. The battery was simply fastened to the loco's underside with double sided tape. I used a standard click-on connection to the battery's poles and ran wires to a sliding switch under the cab floor.

Battery well hidden between the frames held in place with two pieces of double sided tape. The battery can be recharged in the loco via the USB connection.

The wires were routed to the sliding switch under the footplate through a hole in the scratch built cab floor via a small fuse. From there wires were run to the Loco Remote Maxi under the bonnet. The inside of the bonnet was covered in insulating tape to avoid accidental contact with the electrical components. The motor terminals were then connected to the Maxi and that's all the wiring needed on the loco. I will be installing lights on the locomotive later and wires are of course needed for that, too.

Switch and wires fitted under the cab floor connecting battery and Loco Remote Maxi unit.

Protective plate fitted under the model's rear end. Makes sure no wires snag on my prototypically bad and overgrown track.

Loco Remote Maxi unit mounted between motor and gear box cover. I covered the inside of the bonnet with insulating tape, but the Maxi unit fits perfectly and could possibly work risc free without. But better safe than sorry!

The business of connecting the unit installed on the loco with the controller interface on my phone worked out without any problems at all. I simply followed the guide from Loco Remote and everything worked exactly as laid out in the instructions. I guess anyone with a modern phone could do this - my 80 year old dad included.

Happy moment on Nystrup Gravel! The Fowler is moving smoothly along my home built track controlled by my phone. A true breakthrough for my small model railway.

With functuality and power established I'm now moving on with detailing the Fowler to make it resemble the Nystrup prototype with all its small modifications.