Update on Fury

In the article I mentioned that engine Fury had a bad battery. I swapped it out, a rather trivial task as it simply unplugs. It is now running great. The link here will take you to a video showing it pulling a train across some of the finished sections of the layout. 

http://www.usmrr.blogspot.com/2014/03/working-on-railroad.html

Some benefits of battery power that I forgot to mention

I did not spend much time in the article spelling out some of the advantages of battery power. In case you are not aware, here are some things I find very handy.

1. Track need not be scrupulously clean. Since I charge my batteries through the rails, I need some degree of electrical contact, but not the "clean room" standards that normal DCC requires.

2.Shorts on the track power rails do not stop battery powered locos. During op sessions, when one causes a short, by splitting a turnout or derailing, all locos in that power district go dead.  So one has to divide up the layout into several power districts with separate boosters etc, or using power shields, or some other expensive solution. Not so with battery power. They chug right through most shorts. No power districts needed. That is a real nice benefit that is frequently overlooked. 

3. You don't have to wire your track at all if you don't want. My portable layout has no feeder wires to any of the rails except in the staging cassettes.  That is right ....no wires, no frog juicers,  no broken feeders. You do need to implement a recharging scheme but track power is not required.

4. With battery power, intermittent interruptions in track power do not cause the on-board loco sound to recycle. 

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You exchange the cost of the wires for the cost of the battery.  Simple enough.  Good if you have a small count, but if you have a fleet, not so good.

Have you tried running the Stanton cab with straight DC power?  Theory and practice says you won't need the DCC clean room standards, but you would still have the joy of DCC at your fingertips.

Thanks for the link to the video Bernie.

I really do like your modeling and this Civil War era project really takes the cake.

Two things popped into my mind while watching the video:

1.  Any chance of adding smoke to those locomotives?  Just like the silent ones always seemed strange to watch, a steamer puffing along w/o smoke seems 'odd'.  I know the Europeans seem to be making progress, not sure if you've ever considered it?

2. The flag could do with a little 'flapping' ... would not take much, just some movement I think?  OK not a big deal, but it did stand out in the video (yes, that was an attempt at a pun and you would never notice it in a photograph).

As to the number of cabs vs. locomotives; I am not sure that many people would be confused by the way it was written ... it seems natural enough that you would need a separate cab for each locomotive that you are going to run; and that you could likewise assign any of the locomotives to any of the cabs ... (or have I gotten it wrong?) -- heh.  

Battery Power ... yes, it seems like a good way to go on a model railroad ... more prototypical and it really narrows down the trouble shooting when the loco won't run (not the track, so must be something in the loco ...).  But, thinking HO may be too small for the current technology?

Adding battery power to an existing DCC layout

Folks with large fleets of locos that are currently DCC may not want to convert all their engines to battery power. But, you could very easily add battery powered locos to an existing DCC wired layout. The two systems work well together.

That is what I did. Two of my locos have conventional DCC. The other 3 (with a 4th coming on board soon) will have battery power. Ted Pamperin added battery power to some of his problematic steamers to improve their performance on a HO scale DCC powered layout.

 I had previously wired the first sections of my layout for DCC. I still need to finish about 30 percent of my track. The question I face is whether to wire the remaining section for DCC or not, If I don't add the DCC wiring, then I will have to convert the last two locos from DCC  to battery. However, I have already run the main bus wires into that section. I also have a frog juicer 6 pack unused. The frog juicers make DCC wiring pretty easy. So my current thinking is to wire the rest of the layout for DCC and use it as a power recharge source and DCC control for my first two non battery locos.

If I was starting from scratch, I would not bother with wiring.

Like the adoption of DCC, battery power will really take off when manufacturers start adding it to the new locos.

There are some other battery systems out there that are smaller (see Del Tang, Airwire and Tam Valley) and will work in HO scale locos. My O scale steamers are not much bigger than HO modern diesels.

As to smoke, no I am not considering it. I just apply my Apple computer reality distortion field when watching my locos. 

Waving flags would be nice, as would firing cannons, animated people and horses. The flags are soldered brass to be able to withstand handling during op sessions. They get removed and inserted during op sessions in accordance with USMRR rules, which are different than current rules. But that is another subject.

Yes, one can assign any Stanton equipped loco to any Stanton cab. 

when manufacturers start adding it to the new locos.

That would be the key as far as I can tell. If the batteries get small and strong enough that the manufacturers can sell battery powered locos with confidence that the customers will be happy with them then the concept will have arrived. Right now it's just easier to wire and maintain DCC than to figure out how to fit batteries and sound in existing models that run pretty good as is.....DaveB

Bernie at the NMRA Convention 2013

Enjoy this great modeler.  More Excellance in Model Railroading

That was a fun time

Art,

That's a fun video. I wish I knew you were recording sound so I would have shut up (not an easy task for me.)

One thing that comes out from listening to the crews discuss the switch moves is how much fun one can have with a four car train in a simple switching situation.

During the operation, one of the loco's battery died. That is why we switched it out. I had forgot to recharge them over night. They usually last about 3-4 hours on a full charge. The battery in Fury was beginning to hold less and less charge. I have since switched it out and it is running well. 

Neil tells me he has new, improved batteries that have higher capacity now. 

...

Have you tried running it with straight DC track power in place of the battery?

DC power

I have used straight DC to recharge the locos while they are in staging. I have not used straight DC while running. The portable layout has no power at all on the rails except in staging. I am not sure if it will work.

Possible, but needs thinking ahead...

Dear Bernie,

According to http://www.s-cab.com/applications.html it could work,
but would need to be specifically ordered-as/wired-up to suit such an approach,

IE battery becomes a backup, like an ultra-large "Keep Alive", rather than the primary power source...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

...

Why would it not work?  Batteries are not some mystical magic kind of electricity, they're straight DC power.  That's all they are!

You won't need the clean room level of polish on your rails, but at the same time, you'll have a constant power source that costs a power pack and wire.  You may only need two wires at taht, to connect to the layout itself. 

The first time I tried DC power after a couple years of DCC, I was stunned how little effort it took to run trains.  No cleaning, either track or locomotive, and things just ran...no hitches...stunned.

The BPS is why

The Stanton system uses a Battery Power Supply (BPS) circuit to recharge the battery and provide current to the decoder. The circuit is a very sophisticated design to prevent the battery from damage via overcharging, over discharge, etc.

Image from Stanton Web site.

Once the battery is dead, the BPS does not appear to provide a by-pass straight to the decoder using the charging source, as far as I can tell.  

Here is what I have observed on my layout. When the battery dies, the loco stops. If it is trickle charging, in a few minutes it will start running again, but will probably die soon if it discharges faster than it recharges. If you park it and let it charge for a couple hours, you get 3-4 hours of run time. Ideally during an operating session, the locos will keep charging, even when idling, and there will be no need to park them to recharge. When operating on a dead track layout, they will have to be recharged after three hours of operation. Since I got back from the MER meet last fall, and have put my locos on my layout. They have not had to stop to be recharged. 

The BPS will charge via inputs from DC,  DCC or 12V AC(though I haven't tried that), it doesn't care as the voltage gets rectified in the BPS. 

However, You can use the Stanton system as a "keep alive" power source and continue to run DCC on the rails. If you do that then you can't run it on dead rails (as the battery would have power but there would be no DCC signal). To do this the decoder has to be modified by Stanton. If  you want more info please see the Stanton Page

Neil is a very accomplished electrical power engineer. He knows what he is doing. He designed the Stanton System to work safely and reliably with trickle charge through the rails. Most of the other battery system manufacturers are not offering that because it can be very complex and difficult in a large layout situation. This is not just hooking two wires to a battery and going, though you could do that if you didn't mind swapping out the batteries. 

Here is Neil's bio. He has been very nice to work with as I adopt his system to my layout. 

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Then the BPS needs to be redesigned - Neil should redesign it so that if there is track power available, the unit runs on track power while charging the battery if it is below a set voltage.  If the unit lose contact with track power, then it should be able to switch over to battery power until track power is regained, with enough delay to avoid herky jerky switching between the two sources.  Further a capacitor after the BPS but before the system would decoder would mean less disruption to the power circuit.  The right diode matrix would further ensure that the polarity of the voltage is never an issue.

A BPS bypass switch would further allow those who don't want to run with batteries the option to do so without needlessly messing with the BPS.

should redesign it so that if there is track power available

 I agree, the more track power can be used the smaller the batteries need to be. If the trains could run 80 or 90%of the time off track power the batteries could be a lot smaller and easier to fit in the typical sound equipped loco. We need a battery assisted system that is designed by experienced DCC users that know what needs to be fixed and what is not a problem. The power interruptions from dirty rail or dead frogs don't need a total battery power solution to fix them, they just need a better keep alive system  so we can leave longer lengths of track un-powered.....DaveB

Interesting thread

Two guys are trying to convince Mr. Kempinski to wire his layout when he has clearly stated he really doesn't want power on the rails. So who's going to win? The battery powered modeler or the wired track advocates.

Bernd

...

Every time he loses a locomotive half way through a session, or runs out of charged batteries, this issue will become more clear...

Portrait link incorrect

The portrait link at the top of the page links to two pages into the article on here...

Otherwise this is a very interesting article and I have to say to those trying to convince him to power the rails... Good luck!  This system seems interesting and very likely could work out very well.

It looks pretty clear from

It looks pretty clear from here already.

It's Bernie's layout. End of story.

Winner? ... "Code Wins"

Dear Bernd,

If it really needs to be said, it's actually quite simple.

The "winner" is the guy who owns, finances, and actually puts in the effort to build the layout-in-question, which in this particular case is one Mr B Kempinski 

Other modellers are more than free to wire (or not) their own layouts as they see fit...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Comment?

I'd make a comment but this thread has gone to far off the rails already.

Bernd

are trying to convince Mr. Kempinski to wire his layout

   Get with the program. No one is trying to convince him anything, the statements are aimed towards the manufacturer of the equipment. If he wants to sell more stuff he needs to make it do what most people want and most people don't want to try and fit batteries in already packed full loco shells.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the shortcomings of track powered DCC and to fix them with a cheap add on but it does take someone who knows what needs to be fixed and is willing to fix it  instead of wandering off on grand solutions to non problems. Full battery power is a solution to a non problem for the great majority of DCC users or model railroaders and due to the size of the parts it's implementation is difficult or impossible in many  cases so it should be viewed in that context instead of as a necessity. "It's his layout so he can do what he wants"argument  is like saying the sun will rise tomorrow, it imparts nothing useful to a discussion and is often used to distract from intelligent conversation. What one person does with his layout is not important , what we can learn to do for our own layouts is what's important and that takes discussion......DaveB

Not the kind of article expected...?

Dear Bernie,

Oh dear, guess I need to offer my Sincere Apologies here. Apparently the wider MRH community,
having heard Joe's comments that MRH would be "investigating Wireless DCC + battery options in future issues" a few months ago,
were expecting a straight-up hard-nosed situation-agnostic "Product Shootout" type article with Yes/No featureset comparison tables and suchlike. 

We/They/It were obviously not prepared or ready for a "One Modeller's Experience" article,
covering a given specific application, over what is a current "hot button" topic...

Apart from the handset<> loco relationship gramatical issue noted and resolved early on, I see exactly how this article covers you experience with the S-Cab rig on the ACWRR layout, and I thankyou for taking the time and effort to get it down for the benefit of others...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS I note a similar "can be applied to any modelling situation article, but no-one wants to put in the effort to adapt the presented technique to their specific situation" VS "a presented situation specific example, which gets ignored/panned for not applying to everyone's individual situation" challenge in writing LayoutSound articles and how-tos. Still haven't found a suitable middle ground yet, despite years of trying...

Please be nice

Gentlemen,

Lets try to tone it down a little bit. DCC (and battery power) is like politics and religion and it is hard to discuss without getting huffy.

Hopefully you learned enough about the system to either decide to buy it, design your own better one taking the lessons learned from this, or stick with what you've got.

I thank you for your interest.