Battery Power? Yay or nay?

[Train 284]

This is directed to all the battery power guys here. I want to convert to battery power for 2 reasons; no track cleaning, and not have to worry about electrical connections. But, on the other hand, if I have my club come over for the monthly meet, most guys are run electric, and we would miss the opportunity to see lots of trains run. And of course, cost.

If I do go with battery, I plan on using a trailing car to not make things to complicated. But I do want to use radio control. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated! Thanks!

[jcfgrr]

I am a RCS type of guy but any remote control with batteries will alow you to run track power and battery on the same track. I am all battery power but I leave one loop of track so track power can be run for visitors. This can be a solution for your problem. I have also installed a complete RCS system in a boxcar as a trailer car. The output from the throttle plugged into the lighting jack on the back of an LGB engine. It work fine. Of course the track pick-ups on the engine were disconnected. This is so the power does not feed to the rails.

7/8th scale when size matters!

John Foley

[Chompers]

I Personaly Don't use battery power bec. of the cost. but if i could have bought it i would have.  exspecialy since i now have a wirig nightmare on my hands.

My thoughts would be maybe you could set up one of the loops, to be activated by track power, but not all the spur lines, or the entire main line.

And Use battery power to run your engines, but when others come over, they could run on the powered section.

 

Just My thoughs

Philip

[spjrr]

Matt,
     I did track power for 5 years, had hard soldered joints fail, jumper wires fail etc. the last couple years of that.  Not too mention, that acid rain being worse now than ever before, a small sprinkle and brass rail is so tarnished it wouldn't pass juice!!  So I made the jump...on simple locos like my eggliner, I put batteries in it and turn on a switch to let it go...simple but trouble free.  If it does derail, the wheels still keep going, but usually all is fine.  Being a cost type, I went with other locos using aristo train engineer, sierra sound and nimh aa batteries.  Aristo though a few problems, I am happy with as it does what I want, start/stop with speed control, and a couple triggers for whistle bell etc.   I bought a bunch of powizer aa 2250 and 2300 mah rated batteries and have had no problems with them.  In fact use them now in tv remotes and many other things.  The only thing I found they won't work in is your train engineer transmitter (nimh aa voltage about 1.2v not enough voltage) and quartz clocks for the same low voltage reason.  I did however go with a triton charger, around a hundred bucks, as it will do up to 24 cels at a time.  I use a pc power supply as a power source for the triton to save bucks there.  The triton was designed for model plane use to run off your car battery away from home.  I made charging jacks for all locos, and put batteries in boilers on steamers and main body on the only diesel I own...(am a steamer guy).  Used 18 aa cels, (I found at a surplus place 6 cel aa holders and 3 for each loco)  this 3 holder fitts in tender of hartland 440 and aristo  c16 as well as aristo receiver, accessory board, sierra sound card and adapter board for siera sound card.  There is a learning curve to getting things working ok.  So be patient.  Email directly if you have questions as we don't have much time to follow the forums....tonight is just a slow night.....  

[fixitbobbe]

I say yay. Living in the Southwest Phoenix to be exact, It was brought about belonging to a club with over 1500 ft of track to run on and having only the fall thru spring able to run for weather reasons. Too HOT!!!  It is nice to be able come out, place equipment on track, turn on power switch and go. I have converted most of my motive power over to battery, some with receivers in locomotives other in battery car behind. For the big brutes am using gell cells with ball bearing equiped trailing cars. All r/c equip is Aristo. both 27 and 75 mhz on board receivers. Everything works as advertized, but have found that antenna placement does affect range.  Good luck converting. Bob

[BJ of Maltby]

Hey Matt, I converted to RC Battery Power last year, and love it.  I use Airwire 900 and use a battery car for now.  The reason I use a battery car is to keep the cost down.  Each reciever cost $130 and a sound board cost $100+ .  I using radio shack Ni-Cads for RC cars in the trail car.  I can switch the battery packs very quickly for continued running.  If the batteries are in the engine it's impossible to change them.  I get about two hours run time on each pack.  If you have the $$$ put everything in the engine, and a plug/ switch to cut off the engine batteries and switch to a trail car battery when needed.

[cabbage]

I never expected to use anything else than battery power. It is cheap convenient and simple. I have found that a simple DPDT switch and a speed regulator is all I really need. At the moment I am working on a steam electric locomotive and I will simply transfer the experience and techniques to this.

regards

ralph

[spjrr]

Had a couple minutes...found the link to who I had bought many AAnimh cels and have had no problems so far (after 2 years) with the imported powizer brand.   www.opticaspace.com   Also have bought ultra bright leds from them for lighting in bachman passenger cars....great prices compared to where most of us railroaders shop.....   The 2250 mah AA cels I bought,  18 in a Hartland 440 runs 3 to 3.5 hours. 

[Don H]

For what you pay for a good transformer you could get in to battery.

[Takasaki Matt]

At the moment I have all battery motive power.  Steam is still just a dream, one day...ahhhh.  Track power was never an option as I wanted my railway to blend into the landscape and take on the look of a typical narrow gauge light railway.

Rechargeable cells have gone down in price and up in quality, which makes them all the more economical! 

A very loud Yey!