I know, I know, this thread shouldn't be here. It should be in the Garden Railways forum instead. In truth it already is, but the GR forum is depressingly quiet these days (as in 1-2 posts per week) so I'll try it here and then go rub ointment on where the flames scorch my backside...
Working in Fn3. Big big trains. As in big enough to eschew track power and go with on-board batteries. There's lots of suggestions as to which battery/charger/receiver/controller/light-blinker/pneumatic slide-whistle combo to go with, but I'm specifically wondering about lithium-ion cordless tool batteries. What if one were to permanently stuff a li-ion battery inside a tender, wire an audio connector to it, and wire the mating connector to the battery's charger? Is there any reason this wouldn't still charge like normal when plugged together?
Anybody?
Stu
Streamlined steam, oh, what a dream!!
Should work as long as the charger is made for that style of battery.
Rivh
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Stu,
As long as the connector for charging has the amp rating to take the use and you use the charger designed for the battery it should work. If you've already got a tool around with a battery you think would suffice it shouldn't be too hard to set up a test unit. Say you tape the batt'y to a flat car, run some wires to the motor with alligator clips and the same for the charger hookup. Now all you've got to do is figure up some RC controls for throttle. The forum www.freerails.com has a topic area on just this subject. Guys are doing this now, as small as HOn30 using DelTang units from the UK. Some of them have even canniblized cheap RC toys from Rat Shack and used the servo and controls in dummy tenders. In Fn3 you will have so much more room to work you should have no problem. No more worries about dead frogs except the real ones if your trains are outdoors.
Lou
Why reinvent the wheel? Use a system like Airwire or go for the RC car electrics. The batteries used in RC cars and power tools will fry electronics and plastics when shorted. 100 amps is possible when shorted.
Lee
Remember the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and its earlier groundings. LI batteries can sometimes just catch fire. I'm not saying don't use them, but I would strongly suggest arranging the mounting so they can be removed after each day of operation, rather than risking the loss of an engine. You could force yourself to do this by making it impossible to recharge inside the engine.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have some 20 Bachmann Fn3 Steam locomotives as well as USA Trains, Hartland Locomotive Works, Keystone, and a couple other brands of G-scale locomotives, all using Lithium-Ion rechargeable batteries, and have never had a battery fail, cause a fire, or cause anything to melt. The only secret to Lithium-Ion batteries is to have the correct 'smart charger' for the battery pack being used, or get batteries that have a built-in protection circuitry. A Team Tenergy TB6B computerized charger can handle all types and voltages of Lithium batteries, so you only need the one charger.
The December 2012 issue of Garden Railways magazine had a feature article entitled, "Build your own battery packs." Sources are listed for several sources of batteries and chargers. I now build my own battery packs at significantly less cost than a ready-made pack.
My locomotives all use AirWire receivers and Phoenix sound systems.
Eh? Why mount the battery in the tender. Just plug the battery into the locomotive, and when done, take it out an put it in the charger. You can have two batteries, one in the train and one in the charger, that way the train can run all day long.
ROAR
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Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Two issues/notes here.
One, the battery would be physically inside the tender. The tender would need to be partially disassembled to get it out; doing that daily would inevitably lead to wear or damage to the tender. Not an option. Picking up a loco off the rails is something of a sin on the T.O.T. line; a great deal of planning and construction is going into avoiding just that (this is part of it).
Two, the tool batteries I'm looking at are engineered for two things: long life and not exploding in a customer's hand. They have dedicated chargers (and thus strange connection matrices) and onboard protection circuitry. Just what's needed.
Moving on from that, at this point charging amperage is a concern. Ridgid (whose batteries I'm currently looking at using) isn't clear about what sort of amperage their chargers put into the battery when filling the tank. Shouldn't be more than about 5 amps (a 4 amp-hour battery charges in about an hour), but the only way to tell may be to stick wires in the ruddy thing and see if they melt. Outside of a loco, naturally...
Rastafarr Two issues/notes here. One, the battery would be physically inside the tender. The tender would need to be partially disassembled to get it out; doing that daily would inevitably lead to wear or damage to the tender. Not an option. Picking up a loco off the rails is something of a sin on the T.O.T. line; a great deal of planning and construction is going into avoiding just that (this is part of it). Two, the tool batteries I'm looking at are engineered for two things: long life and not exploding in a customer's hand. They have dedicated chargers (and thus strange connection matrices) and onboard protection circuitry. Just what's needed. Moving on from that, at this point charging amperage is a concern. Ridgid (whose batteries I'm currently looking at using) isn't clear about what sort of amperage their chargers put into the battery when filling the tank. Shouldn't be more than about 5 amps (a 4 amp-hour battery charges in about an hour), but the only way to tell may be to stick wires in the ruddy thing and see if they melt. Outside of a loco, naturally... Stu
I think that your idea has merit and that you should give it a go. I would be interested in how the project goes and think that a thread of your efforts and results would be quite interesting.
Joe
JoeinPA I think that your idea has merit and that you should give it a go. I would be interested in how the project goes and think that a thread of your efforts and results would be quite interesting. Joe
A quick update. Wiring the battery directly to the charger works just fine (as I suspected). I'm abandoning the XLR connectors for a variety of reasons and examining alternatives, but this project is going on the back burner for a bit.
I will update, it just might be a little while!