AristoCraft Train Engineer systems & evolution

Aristo has built various types of remote control systems over the years.

Most of them are simple control systems with support for an accessory decoder.

Most are also called "Train Engineer", so you need to be specific when you talk about them.

One piece of background, Aristo has put a "socket" in their locos for the last several years. It's two rows of pins, but only one row is really used. Systems using this socket are usually called "onboard", and larger systems that connect to the rails are called "trackside", but many people put the "trackside" system inside a box car, thus on board, and one of the "onboard" systems does not use the socket!

The moral is to be very specific when talking about this to someone else.

27 MHz "onboard" Train engineer

CRE-55490

The earliest systems were 27 MHz, one way communication, there is a trackside unit in a large housing, and a 27 MHz onboard system. The 27Mhz onboard system is pictured below, and is no longer manufactured: (first picture courtesy of George Schreyer).

Here is another view, the wire bundle in the foreground connects to the optional reed relay accessory board:

This system did not plug into the Aristo socket, and pre-dated the use of the socket I believe. It was good for about 2.5 to 3 amps (info anyone?). Range was OK, and the metal housing helped ruggedize it. It was not particularly popular, possibly because people seemed to overload them and burn them out.

75 MHz "onboard" Train Engineer

CRE-55491 - receiver?
CRE-55492 - set of transmitter and receiver?
CRE-55495 - accessory receiver?

This unit plugs into the "Aristo standard" socket. I believe this frequency was tried to help avoid range and interference problems. (It really did not help). This product is likewise out of production.

The picture below show the board, the long wire is the antenna: (the wire is just wrapped around the board temporarily)

The picture below shows the underneath, you can see the output transistors and the pins to fit into the Aristo socket:

The picture below shows the top of the board:

Actually, the board is two boards connected together. The smaller, top board is the receiver. This shows the boards pulled apart:

And with the receiver board upside down showing it's pins to connect to the logic board:

(There was a plan, and apparently prototypes built for a 27 MHz receiver to fit this board, why it was never produced is a quandary, with the Aristo socket standard on all newer locos).

The long white socket you see is for the connection of an accessory board. ***need*** (we'll have to wait until R.J. sends me a picture!)

There was also a CRE-55495 accessory board, I believe it was a separate receiver. will have to confirm and get pictures.

This unit was supposed to be the next great thing, but people had more range issues with it than the 27 MHz units, and then production went away due to the unavailability of the main chip. The functionality was like the previous system.

HO Train Engineer

CRE-55001 - receiver
CRE-55002 - receiver pack of 6
CRE-55004 - receiver pack of 2
CRE-55401 - transmitter?

Basically a lower power output, some people use them in very small G scale locos.

Basic "Trackside" Train Engineer

CRE-55480

There is a system with the receiver intended to be "trackside", i.e. between your power supply and the track. Thus, you can run one train per track/electrical block. The Basic TE has only one frequency. Apparently there were 10 different frequencies available for purchase, so if you could get one of each, you could have independent control of 10 locos, but you need 10 different controllers. 

The "Trackside" Train Engineer 55470 (transmitter and receiver set)

CRE-55470 - transmitter and receiver set
CRE-55471A - receiver only
CRE-55473 - transmitter only

This unit is the current mainstay R/C system for Aristo (as of late 2008). It has been out for years. The receiver is large, handles 10 amps, and was designed to be "trackside", between the power supply and the track. Many people have removed it from it's case and put in a trailing car for remote operation, running from battery or track power. It can change channels, and theoretically could control 10 locos in each channel, and there are 10 "tracks" so you could theoretically run 100 locomotive. There were older transmitters that only had 2 "tracks".

The transmitter alone is part number CRE-55473
from the box: 27 MHz band, antenna input power 100 mw, spurious power up to 55 db, rf bandwidth 55 db at +-10 KHz max (deviation), modulation FM (code type). current 100mW typical. It uses 4 AA batteries.

The receiver alone is part number CRE-55471
from the box: 27 MHz band, IF freq is 455 KHz "single supervision"(??), FM modulation, sensitivity 10DB at sinad-12 db, input voltage 15-20v, output0-18v at 10 amp max

Accessory controllers 

CRE-55474 (5474)

5474 / 55474 is an accessory controller / receiver for 27 MHz. It is a standalone box that takes 5-16 volts to power, and it has the receiver and electronics for control.

There are 5 outputs labeled A-E. Check George Schreyer's page for a lot of good information: click here

I made a small R/C add-on for Nick Savatgy. He often takes a trackside TE and runs locos with QSI modules at shows. The idea is to make little remote add on to do the track polarity reversals to ring the bell and blow the whistle. 

In short, there are 5 "outputs" on the unit.

Outputs A and B are for switch machines, they appear to be capacitor discharge and put out a DC pulse, and reverse polarity each time they are toggled.

Output C is for lamps, puts out voltage on or off, toggled by pressing the button. Instructions say 200 ma, but George found that an internal current limiting resistor will overheat at that current, keep to 100 ma max. This output supplies power. The + is plus and C is pulled to ground when activated.

Outputs D and E are connected to optoisolators where C must be positive with respect to the E terminal. They go to a low resistance state as long as the D or E buttons are depressed. George indicates these are probably only good for 10 ma!  (These are the two I will use for the reversing relays).

Theoretically, you could link the controller just like the main TE receiver, and support 100 controllers. It turns out that this accessory controller only works on track 1, freq 1, so this is a problem.

CRE-55475 (5475)

This is very similar to the 5474 / 55474 accessory controller, but all 5 outputs (A through E) are for switch machines. You connect 5 switch machines to it. It has a "pulse" type output, so it is not appropriate for the stall type motors, or the new Aristo slow motion switch machine.

There is a goofy mode that lets you trigger more than one at a time, but it only allows A&B, or D&E or all 5 at once. Goofy.

CRE-5472 / 55472

The 5472 / 55472 was a set of relays that plugged into a DIN connector on the early trackside TE's. This is out of production, although you could wire one into a current TE if you knew where to connect.

New Revolution Train Engineer

This new unit will be available early 2009. It has an LCD readout and operates on 2.45 GHz. It uses the Zigbee protocol, which is in a chip by Texas Instruments. It's not clear which power level chip is being used so far.

The system uses 2 way communication, and it apparently will read back the speed of the train. It is not clear at this time if it is reading back the power applied to the motor, or the actual speed. ***need*** I suspect it is only reading the power sent to the motor. The 2 way communication is also used to indicate overload or short conditions.

There is no integration with any DCC sound decoder, like the AirWire system. There is no BEMF motor control.

Here's a photo of the transmitter:

This is an "onboard" system designed to plug into the Aristo socket. The receivers are approximately the same size as the 75MHz onboard unit and will plug into the Aristo socket.

The photos below show the receiver:

The unit is claimed to have 5 amp continuous and 8 amp peak rating.

See the separate section on the Revolution TE for details.

List of the frequencies used by Aristo for the 27 and 75 MHz units.

(Courtesy Dan Pierce)

The TRACK # does not change the frequency. The "basic" TE (orange) was available in the same frequencies as the Black 27 MHz units. Be sure you have the same frequency for the transmitter and receiver.