Remote for a boring toy train

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Scomor202
 
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Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2016 12:38 am

Remote for a boring toy train

Post by Scomor202 »

My son received a toy train set that only has an on/off switch. He didn't like having to chase it down to stop it at the station.

I bought the Simple RF T4 Receiver - 315MHz Toggle Type and keyfob Single Button RF Remote Control - 315MHz. I had no problem hooking these up and was able to make the turn on an LED no problem, but couldn't get the motor to work. I assume the little board probably couldn't pass enough current to turn the motor.

The train uses 3 C cell batteries and the output after the receiver was installed was 4.5v. I didn't check the current draw with just the motor hooked up.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Remote for a boring toy train

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

You're right that the receiver can't handle enough current to run the motor by itself. The motor will probably use a few hundred milliamps, and possibly up to 1A.

What you can do is connect a transistor between the motor and the negative end of the battery pack, and use the receiver to control that. This tutorial in the Learning System shows how to connect things: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-ard ... -dc-motors

Just use the receiver instead of the Arduino.

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Scomor202
 
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Re: Remote for a boring toy train

Post by Scomor202 »

Thanks very much. That's exactly what I was looking for.

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