davetheroad

Check this out http://www.cvpusa.com/mini_airwire_convrtr.php You could use track power rather than a battery

Do you use overhead power collection!.

It is a hobby Andy, people do it for different reasons. It helps pass the time. i like doing stuff that is a little different. I have a railway background, my grandfather was a LMS driver. If i wanted a correctly working steam loco i would be running large scale live steam. It is all about the suspension of disbelief.I don't even paint my track and it does not bother me. i like running models of engines that my grandfather drove. anyway, back to the topic. Bachmann using software to generate commands for loco control may be a savvy move. they don't have to develop any hardware other than the receiver board and that uses industry standard bluetooth for communication.

If you have a free app generating the commands, bluetooth or whatever providing the link and the receiving chip is the same price as a DCC one that is easier on the pocket!. Use batteries rather than track power and you simplify wiring to the point of not having any! IMO the Bachmann system is not aimed at existing DCC users but newcomers to the hobby or those contemplating moving on from DC. I am in the second group, building a new layout and not liking wiring/control panels led me to radio control/battery power.

The DCC hardware manufacturers will be taking a keen interest as they will percieve it as a threat to their future customer base. At the moment it looks as if the Bachmann app will not be sending DCC commands to the loco receiver.If it ever did you would only need a regulated power supply to the track, make that AC/DC and you could use any commercial power supply, blowing the DCC manufacturers out of the water.. If the system gains acceptance they will start charging for the app . I myself prefer tactile knobs, buttons and switches to touch screens, maybe someone can connect a knob to an android device so you can look at the train while you move the throttle, one handed!

Thats a neat idea. I have just built a Metcalfe signalbox and don't like the card edges. Your method reminds me of 'dithering' which we used many years ago when compiling air photograph mosaics. The idea was to get the top piece of paper as thin as possible near the overlap edge.

Amazing timing!. i was taking photos this morning for a new thread i am going to entitle 'Battery Powered Radio Controlled Locomotives for Pengarigg' Pengarigg is my 00 scale steam era layout under construction. The first loco to be featured is one of my favourites, a Hornby Railroad Midland Compound 4-4-0. Watch this forum !

Thanks very much. So far i have being looking at hobby batteries aimed at model aircraft enthusiasts. I also noticed that my Canon camera 750 mAh 1s battery is very compact and you could stack them 3 high. The problem is it is too wide but if the correct proprtion would fit nicely - pity!.

Here is my ancient Hornby frame motor chassis. It is a LNER prototype no 8477 in green livery and was given to me by a friend. As I model LMS/BR London Midland it might only get an occasional outing. It moves just fine with a Deltang receiver and quite happily climbs over the first Peco code 100 point frog it encounters. The running is a bit erratic at slow speed but it appears that the quartering is off and the back to backs need looking at! I will not be able to check the haulage capicity, speed and power consumption until the wheels etc are sorted.

The hobby has room for all sorts of opinions and solutions to problems so as far as I am concerned if i want to use battery power with radio control that should be fine by everyone else. For me, I see advantages with following this route. I have started a 00 layout from scratch. I have not done ANY wiring and happily mixed electrofrog and isulfrog points. The rails are there to steer the trains. I have no problems with track cleaning, no stalling on points, no need for the hand of god and find exploring a 'new' approch to running model trains fun. OK - examples of usable tender dimensions in mm Hornby Midland Compound 4-4-0 - 80 x 25 x 15 but 10mm at one end has only 10mm height Hornby Duke of Gloucester 4-6-2 - 70 x 25 x 16 Bachmann 3F 0-6-0 - 70 x 25 x 12 Hornby LMS Patriot 4-6-0 - 70 x 25 x 15 Hornby Jinty 0-6-0T - 14 x 7 x 50 in each water tank For ease of access it would be preferable to place the receiver board in the tender but it could be located in the loco boiler if there is room. Motor voltage - the motors are all nominally 12V but I have found that i get good performance with less volts depending on load and maximum speed required. For example the big passenger locos are happiest with 11+ volts because of the high sppeds i want to model. Freight locos are fine on 7-9 volts as they rarely go over scale 40mph. The little shunter is happy with 5-7 volts Amps - my 'hungriest' loco draws 170 milliamps pulling 12 coaches at scale 60mph. The most economical 3F 0-6-0 is about 85 milliamps with 4 coaches. Battery usage - I tested the locos with 70mAh lipo batteries, 2S or 3S for big passenger. Midland compound - 40 minutes with 8 coaches at 60mph Duke of Gloucester - 20 minutes with 12 coaches at 60mph Jinty - 35 minutes with 7 wagons at 30mph 3F freight engine - 45 minutes with simulated 12 wagons at 35mph Duchess of Gloucester 4-6-2 - 25 minutes with 12 coaches at 60mph 'Illustrious' Patriot 4-6-0 - 28 minutes with 9 coaches at 60mph I reckon with a custom made lipo you might be able to get a 3S 700-750 mAh battery in some tenders. Radio Control - The system i use seems reliable, works well and has excellent customer support. There is another system from Protocab due for release early next year and Bachmann USA are introducing a system as well. It seems the radio side of the equation is pretty much solved, as far as basic train control is concerned. How big a battery you can stuff in a loco is a different matter. With fixed formations you just put the battery in the train but it would be nice to run light engine, tootle around the shed etc etc.. How big a battery you need depend on how long you run the loco between recharges. 30 minutes woud be fine for me.

Apparently Andy is a system developer, manufacturer and retailer of model rail stuff including some soon to be announced products for DCC. Maybe this explains somewhat his position?

It also depends on what trains you have and/or how you operate them. With modern fixed formation DMU's, EMU's and HST's the trains are not divided so having batteries in a different coach makes no difference. It is sort of prototypical as well. A Pendolino might have 11 coaches but only 1 OHLE pickup. Power is then distributed to the motors spread along the train. So having a wire between coaches is prototypical. Another example is a layout like mine where the main line 'elite' passenger expresses will either pass through or stop at the station. There is no requirement to couple or uncouple them. There are small loco facilities but they are for the branch line services. Consider this, my 'hungriest' pacific loco will run for 20 mins on a 3S 70mAH battery in the tender. You could fit a much larger battery in there but what about the leading brake coach? Lets put a 1400mAh 3S battery in there. That gives us up to 6 hours 40 mins operation before recharge. Actually for me 15 minutes operation per loco is plenty, it gets boring after that, so I can expect up to 27 'sessions' from a battery recharge. Say I have 20 different Royal Scots, Patriots, Jubilees and Duchesses etc and some get an outing weekly but some only every month or so. Do i need 20 radio receiver/battery installations? No!, i could have fewer and swop between locos as required. Another option is to put the receiver in the leading coach as well, simply plugging the loco in. This saves lots of money but less profit for the manufacturers. I could have 2 fixed formation passenger trains. The 'Up Scotch Express' and the 'Down Scotch Express'. that is 2 receivers and 2 sets of batteries, not 20!. i estimate that if such batteries were custom designed for model trains you should be able to fit a 3S 700mAh in a typical 00 scale tender. This would mean my Duke of Gloucester 4-6-2 would run for over 3 hours and my 3F 0-6-0 tender freight loco for 7.5 hours, actually longer as it only needs a 2S battery, maybe over 10 hours !!!! Perhaps to avoid confusion the topic should be titled Battery Powered Radio Controlled Trains.

Here we go again !!!! Of course it is a model loco. It can be a model without a motor sitting in a display case and it is still a model. The ability to move is not a requirement. Of course it is a battery powered loco. It is powered by a battery!. there is no rule that states the battery has to be in the loco. Modern EMU's etc don't have the power in the loco do they. Lets take the argument to its conclusion, the nearest you are going to get to a 'real' steam loco is an actual model steam powered loco. As operators don't want to follow the loco so they can operate the regulator, brake and whistle prototypically with their hands (maybe some do) they are going to use servos, what powers the servos? batteries, unless you have an onboard generator. How are you going to operate the controls? with a radio link.

Pretty much anything with brushes in it. There are various receivers with different amps output. i have a old Hornby 0-6-0 loco with an open frame motor which has a big magnet on the back. It might be similar and i will post an image tomorrow. It works OK but the loco is undergoing heavy overhaul - quartering and back to backs

There should be no problem fitting in the radio bits. Is it a Hudswell Clarke or a Manning Wardle? for both you might need some imagination to fit batteries? How many amps do you need etc etc

1.2V per cell is just too low. there is limited space in a 00 scale tender. so for now lipos are the best option if you don't mind the voltage drop on discharge. for me it is not just the capacity etc of the cells but whether they are readily available in a useable form with easy to use connectors etc. There are lots of 2S and 3S batteries available but guess what? most of them are slightly too large to fit in 00 scale easily. We have an internal width of no more than 30mm or a little less and most of those batteries are 30mm or more wide!. Then there is the problem of run time. If you are happy with run times of a hour or so between recharges as I am, fine. If you demand run times of several hours, some say 8 hours or more, you may well be dissappointed!. I will say having a loco running for 8 hours would drive me insane.

I looked at this as well. It might be OK for those who are willing to pay for the 'fuel' on a regular basis. The problems i found were the batteries did not deliver enough volts and those that did could not deliver the required constant amps output. Take a standard 9V cell. Fits rather neatly in most tenders and can have a lot of mAh. Then you find the voltage sags and it can't deliver the amps.

Thanks for the link, maybe i won't try this as i have enough difficulty in installing a neat package as it is. wires everywhere!.

I wonder if it is possible to source a charge regulator circuit that would fit in a loco? I which case you could leave the loco on the track condfident the battery would not overcharge. I roughly calculate that if you use a single battery and voltage booster with a 9V output divide the battery mAh capacity by 3. For a 12V output divide by 4. I presume you could parallel connect similar batteries for more mAh ?

Interesting! My answers would be No, No, No, No do many hobby aircraft and heli packs have these features? I short circuited a battery by accident and the result was spectacular but small, it was only a 150 mAh single cell. over discharge protection is built into the loco controller board. Set at 3V for a single cell. i will see what the vendor thinks about 3.5V over charge protection is built into the charger. Batteries peak at 4.2V My most common 160mAh single cells have a rated constant discharge of 25C, that 4 amps, as my locos all draw less than 0.2amps i am not worried, maybe?? each charging circuit on the charger is limited to 0.3amp

OK, glad I did not try it!

I have no intention of doing this but would it work? Connect each of the 4 charging circuits on my charger to an isolated section of siding or a bufferstop. Park 4 locos on those sections. each loco has a set of rail pickups (or buffer pickups) and a bridge rectifier? to ensure the electrical trickery is flowing in the correct direction. each loco uses a single battery with a voltage booster. Plus a switch of course. Switch the loco to charge and the battery would be topped up to 4.2V controlled by the charging circuits in the charger.

Thanks Simon, lots of useful information there. My E-flite charger has 4 independant charging circuits, each capable of 0.3 amps. I simply plug in a compatible battery and a red light goes on, eventually the light starts blinking and the 'blinks' gradually get longer until the light is only occassionly blinking on. Remove the battery and test it and it is 4.2V. I guess it is doing the job properly. At the moment I only use small E-flite compatible batteries connected in series and the batteries are recharged when they are no more than 60-70% depleted. For the little tank engine i was hoping to use a voltage regulator and parallel connected batteries permanently installed with a 440 mAh capacity. I will take your advice about heating into consideration. i could pop the body off and stick it in front of a fan?

I agree, use only well known branded chargers and FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS Now i am confused. If my battery has an internal resistance of 50 milliohms and i use a 0.3amp charger there will be 0.015 watts of heating? hardly enough to worry about maybe!.

Another 2 locos tested, First bought second hand and had to rebend the coupling rods etc to make it work properly. The tender needed the application of a hacksaw to get rid of the tender drive mountings. 5 - Hornby Railroad Illustrious Patriot 4-6-0 3S 70mAh battery 11.1 volt load 8X Railroad Mk1 coaches, 1x Dapol LMS coach (test rig) test speed 60mph result - loco started slowing after 28 minutes top speed was 78mph loco draws 0.15amps under normal operating load 6 - Hornby Duchess of Gloucester 4-6-2 (the blue engine) 3S 70mAh battery 11.1 volt load 9X Railroad Mk1 coaches, 2x Dapol LMS coaches, 1x 12 wheel dining car test speed 60mph result - loco started slowing after 25 minutes top speed was 94mph loco draws 0.15amps under normal operating load