DC Walk around throttles


MRC has the Control Master 20, and a new Tech 6 hand held. Whether or not the Tech 6 is a true walkaround throttle I don't know, and their site doesn't say.

Aristo has a couple of types of walkaround throttles.

These are the only ones I can remember right now. In the past MRC offered 3 different types of walkarounds.
 
Well, I treated myself to a Hand Held Throttle with a twenty foot cord. It is a GML Rover. At first it didn't work well due to a defect, but the manufacturer was helpful in helping me resolve the defect by getting me to install two diodes. Save me the trouble of having to mail it back.
It works very well. I should have got one years ago.
 
I have an MRC CM20 that I have been using for about 8 years. I had a few problems w/mine right at the beginning, but they remedied the problem. I have 6 Hookups(plugs) around the layout in Critical area's & I'm going to add about 4 more this summer.
The Aristocraft RC controllers won't work inside of a metal building's. A few of my friends have them on smaller indoor layouts & they work really well.
I'm going to check into the Walkarounds listed above.I tried to find Ken Stapleton's 851 on EBay about a month ago w/no luck. I beleive they were $35.00 plus shipping when I use to buy on Ebay.
 
Our club (NTRAK) uses 4 Aristocract remote throttles and like them really well. We've never had any issues with them in any of the venues we've set up in and they've held up to A LOT of abuse. Ours include some nice momentum features. They're definiteley nicer than a tethered throttle. And if you power them with you existing power packs it's easy to swap them out if needed/wanted.
 
flh80 said:
I have MRC 20's and also older "Hogger's" by Star Tech. The Hoggers you can pick used faily cheap on Ebay and the work real well. They were one of the first's with walk around capabilities.
Click to expand...

Actually they were one of the last to come on the scene. MRC has offered walkarounds since the 1960's that I know of. Cama, Troller and several TAT3s, and TAT4's by others were made during the 1970's.

There have been many others, and that doesn't include how many hundreds were built from articles in MR, RMC, etc.

Z;

I was digging around in some of my old electronics, and found these;

OLDDCCABS.png


The one on the left was MRC's answer to Lynn Westcott's TAT4, (True Action Throttle) and came out around the early 1970's, and required 12V DC. The other is the TechII hand held, which came out about the same time as the first TechII's, around mid seventies, IIRC. This one required 16V AC voltage.
IIRC I have 2 more of the ones on the left, somewhere that is..
 
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Cjcrescent said:
Actually they were one of the last to come on the scene. MRC has offered walkarounds since the 1960's that I know of. Cama, Troller and several TAT3s, and TAT4's by others were made during the 1970's.

There have been many others, and that doesn't include how many hundreds were built from articles in MR, RMC, etc.

Z;

I was digging around in some of my old electronics, and found these;

OLDDCCABS.png


The one on the left was MRC's answer to Lynn Westcott's TAT4, (True Action Throttle) and came out around the early 1970's, and required 12V DC. The other is the TechII hand held, which came out about the same time as the first TechII's, around mid seventies, IIRC. This one required 16V AC voltage.
IIRC I have 2 more of the ones on the left, somewhere that is..
Click to expand...

That is so cool. How come I never seen any of these; probably because I grew up in a small town that had no hobby shop.
 
Cjcrescent said:
Actually they were one of the last to come on the scene. MRC has offered walkarounds since the 1960's that I know of. Cama, Troller and several TAT3s, and TAT4's by others were made during the 1970's.

There have been many others, and that doesn't include how many hundreds were built from articles in MR, RMC, etc.

Z;

I was digging around in some of my old electronics, and found these;

OLDDCCABS.png


The one on the left was MRC's answer to Lynn Westcott's TAT4, (True Action Throttle) and came out around the early 1970's, and required 12V DC. The other is the TechII hand held, which came out about the same time as the first TechII's, around mid seventies, IIRC. This one required 16V AC voltage.
IIRC I have 2 more of the ones on the left, somewhere that is..
Click to expand...

Your right, I was meaning ones with "Memory" walk around though and should have said that.
Yeah, the old ones were good, I still have a Troller hand held stashed away.
 
How about selling me some of those old Walkarounds? I only run DC & I have AC & DC Transformers that I could use. I have an Aristocraft trans. that came off of an O scale layout that retails for about $250.00 that I could probably use for 1 or both of those.
How much-PM me please. I have a lot of stuff to trade.
 
I have been using the MRC Tech II for 20+ years but with some modifications. The internals are pretty substantial and some analysis said the built-in circuit breaker was way too conservative (and consistently tripped with just 2 Athearn BB running...).

So I added some internal heatsinks to the critial components, swapped the CB for a fast-blow fuse (2a?, not sure) mounted externally and added a tiny fan off of the fixed DC outputs. I can now run up to 4 of those ancient power-mad Athearn BB units with no interruptions.
 
kenw said:
I have been using the MRC Tech II for 20+ years but with some modifications. The internals are pretty substantial and some analysis said the built-in circuit breaker was way too conservative (and consistently tripped with just 2 Athearn BB running...).

So I added some internal heatsinks to the critial components, swapped the CB for a fast-blow fuse (2a?, not sure) mounted externally and added a tiny fan off of the fixed DC outputs. I can now run up to 4 of those ancient power-mad Athearn BB units with no interruptions.
Click to expand...
I think the old Hoggers had a heat problem also, the V regulators vould get hot and toast. Otherwise they worked good.
Can't see why MRC took the fans off of the Control Master 20's, just to save money and charge the same.

I built my own hand helds years back and for our club also from and old article in MR, they worked really good (the club packs were boosted to 20v) but didn't have memory.
 
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Say Zoegraf,
Most of the walk around throttles for DC were tethered, meaning they had to be connected to plug-in's along the facia of your layout meaning you always had to contend with a six to eight foot connection cable and that's not very convenient.


I found a wireless radio controlled unit by Aristo Craft, their Crest; 'Basic Train Engineer', that is really convenient with no connections to anything. It uses a small receiving unit that is hooked up between the transformer and the rail power/buss and that's it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Aristocraft-Basic-Train-Engineer-ART-5480-Wireless-w-PS-/300515642031

Crest also offers more advanced hand throttles too that might work but may need a decoder in the loco and the price is just a little more?
 
I had the more advanced model of the AristoCraft that I tried for about 3 months on my layout & it never worked right. You could run HO or G scale w/it. I finally found out that there were problems trying to get it to work inside a non-insulated metal building. I sold it for what I paid for it. Then I bought the Basic Train Engineer & had the same problem.
AristoCraft told me I would always have problems since I was in a metal building. So, now, all I use are tethered type. I use a 10ft cord(4wire) & have many plugs. I did have a coiled wire(telephone recoil) & was always having problems, so, I went w/a flat wire.
the recoil puts a lot of stress on a tele. plug when you pull it to 1 side or stretch it out to it's max.
 
Anybody using the Flat Phone cords you buy in the stores are really poor quality. They are made of nylon thread wraped with tin foil.
Your much better of making your own with the round four wire cable and crimping on the plastic plug ends, the tool is about $7 but works good and you'd get better range with the better wire.

Larry,
I Emailed you and sent some pic's
 
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