I had been considering a constant lighting circuit for non-powered rolling stock, based on a lithium ion battery. Since I run DC, I can't run car interior and marker lights directly from the rails.
Then I saw tonight's NBC coverage of some unfortunate who had the lithium ion battery for his E-cigarette explode in his pants pocket. Something tells me that having one of my passenger cars or brake vans imitating Vesuvius would ruin my whole day!
Mister Unlucky got away with second degree burns. My layout (and attached house) might not be that lucky, especially since the initial ignition resembled a skyrocket. Effective immediately, all tinkering with lithium ion batteries around the Chrysanthemum Empire has been permanently discontinued.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - as safely as possible)
Are these like the small 'watch' batteries used by Rapido in their passenger cars? My whole fleet uses those - but with no problems in 7 years..
RR_MelI have been using this mode for lighting for almost a year without any problems. Remember almost every portable device made now uses rechargable Lithium batteries.
Ewe must send circuit to LION! : )
LION has a rechargable device for tablets and cell phones etc, some are indeed small enough to put inside of a SUBWYA CAR.
LION has been contemplating this device. Maybe him can put the input side to the tracks via a full wave rectifier, and the output side to his lighting bus. Is it OK to allow a device to zero out its charge when laied up for the night or the week, and then expect it to begin working again when the railroad is powered up?
Or does the LION have to try this out for the self of him.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Lithium Ion batteries are only dangerous if pierced (plety of YouTube videos of bozos smashing cell phone batteries with a hammer if you'd like to see what happens - or if you had chemistry in high school perhaps you did the experiment of dropping a teensy tiny bit of lithium or sodium in a beaker of water) or cahrged incorrectly. Your typical lithium cell will have a temperature sensor and a charge regulator that is designed to prevent overcharging. The charging circuit must be designed for lithium ion batteries, a nicad or nimh charger cannot be used. The thing is, like most things, you can get away with some abuse for some period of time before something fails, sometimes catastrophically. I'll almost guarantee that the cheapest of the e-cigs have only the most rudimentary of charge circuits or protection, made in CHina to the absolute lowest price point possible. RC modelers have been using Li-ion batteries for years now, both to power the radios and to turn the props in electric motor planes, helicopters, and quadcopters. Li-ion batteries have been used for years now in cell phones and laptops. Yes, there was a recall of laptop batteries because a manufacturing defect (hmm, maybe the didn't connect the charge regulator circuit..) caused some to catch fire, but a properly built Li-ion battery pack is perfectly safe if not abused physically or by subjecting it to improper charging. For example, there have been circuits published for constant lighting that use ni-cad batteries and charge them right from track power - when you are moving fast enough, the battery charges, when you stop at a station, the battery now drives the lights. You can NOT just drop a Li-ion battery in to replace the ni-cad.
So don't worry too much about it, and keep railroading.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Chuck,
Couldn't you use some sort of keep-alive circuit board for powering your interior lighting? Each car would have it's own board and you wouldn't have to deal with batteries; nor remember to turn them off at the end of the day.
MTH used that with their HO 20th Century Limited passanger cars. It takes ~1 min. for the lights to come up to full-power and ~5 min. for them to completely die out, after you turn off the power to the track. Much more preferable, IMO, than batteries.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
tstageCouldn't you use some sort of keep-alive circuit board for powering your interior lighting? Each car would have it's own board and you wouldn't have to deal with batteries; nor remember to turn them off at the end of the day. Tom
LION had be looking for this golden grail, but him has found it knot. Him wants lights to stay on at the station stops. Him tried super caps but him not got the circuit of him just sew 'cause it wroked not.
Not a bad idea. Lithium batteries are banned from shipment on airliners because of a nasty in flight fire. Boeing had some very scary lithium battery fires on board their brand new 787's. I saw a video of a laptop catching fire on a conference room table and burning a hole right thru the table top onto the floor.
For lighting rolling stock, I like supercapacitors. All Electronics carries them, a few bucks apiece, 0.47 Farads at 5 volts. They do need some support electronics, but I managed to get the full wave bridge rectifier, the 5 volt regulator to charge the cap, and a 1.5 volt regulator to feed the 1.5 Volt bulbs all inside an HO caboose. The capacitor held enough juice to keep the lights burning for 20 seconds after track power was removed.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Trains of LION run on real time. Station stops are closer to 45 seconds. Him used LEDs, him had rectifier, regulator, and tried an even bigger cap in the 1.4F range. No joy. Tried putting four together to raise the voltage closer to the power I wanted, but still no wrok.
GRRRRrrrr.....
Hmm. LED's take 10 mA, whereas incandescent bulbs take 30 mA. I'd expect an LED version to stay on for like three times as long as incandescent bulbs (60 seconds) after track power goes away. How many LED's were you powering off the supercap?
BroadwayLion Ewe must send circuit to LION! : ) LION has a rechargable device for tablets and cell phones etc, some are indeed small enough to put inside of a SUBWYA CAR. LION has been contemplating this device. Maybe him can put the input side to the tracks via a full wave rectifier, and the output side to his lighting bus. Is it OK to allow a device to zero out its charge when laied up for the night or the week, and then expect it to begin working again when the railroad is powered up? Or does the LION have to try this out for the self of him. ROAR
Not all lithium ion batteries are banned. Laptops are still allowed as carry-on. The lithium ion batteries were brought to the limelight with the advent and subsequent issues with the hoverboard. As someone who sells these, I can tell you that UL has now given makers of hoverboards the standards in which to get UL approval. Even with the UL apporval, I don't think airlines will allow hoverboards on planes. The small lithium ion batteries used by hobby drone planes, are protected batteries as another person stated.
If we keep thinking along those lines, no one would want to run trains, as they may get an electrical shock from the track, power supply or who knows what. Let's try to keep some things in perspective..
And now, back to running trains!
Seems living is hazardous to one's health.
If I had a sawbuck for every time I burnt or cut myself with a modeling knife I would be rich.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
All chargable batterys have rules and if you break them, you get fire or worse. Nowadays there are many knockoff products without the safety devises included. There are lots of rules for lithos and they can explode even if not followed. You need to use the right charger, and have extra circits to make them safe.
David,
Lithium batteries are not banned from air shipment. They cannot be charged to no more that 66%(which is how they come sealed in bubble packs). The Boeing 'Dreamliner' that had a battery case catch fire was due to improper installation(IIRC).
Back when I was still working, we would have customers call in complaining that after they installed new redundent cache batteries, the system would disable the redundent cache until the batteries were up to full charge. We would just read them the 'rules' and forward them a copy of them...
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Oh man, there's literally no regulation on who sells e-cigarette apparatus, it's everywhere, and dude had it in a pants pocket. What exactly does he want?Combine that with constantly being bounced around, and you have one very poor example of a technology defect. This should not be used as a comparison to your railcar use of LiIon batteries.
Regarding power from the rails on DC, aren't there keepalive caps for car lighting yet?
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
Thanks to everyone for the reassurance. Maybe I was a bit hasty in my initial judgement. Seems all I really have to do is keep my lithium-ion equipped rolling stock from taking a cliff dive to the concrete floor.
Of course, I have other reasons for keeping rolling stock from cliff diving...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I have noticed that my cell gets warm when being charged with with the turbocharger makes me wonder if heat could be a problem in a confined location.
Joe Staten Island West