Battery Power

From everything I've seen and read about Battery Power so Far.

"Not enough power" most modelers don't want to have to have 2 engines coupled for life or have to rely on special box cars for carrying around the batteries and if it's a long train with many engines were talking a lot more weight just to power the trains.

"Length of battery power" I also have read they don't want to have to spend a lot of time plugging in these cars in order to have enough charge to operate through an entire operating session.

"Life of Batteries" Even with battery power by the time you hook every thing up with battery's you would end up with the problem of what happens when you don't have time to operate and your trains set for a month or two. Then when you find the time and 2/3s of the Batteries are discharged  and or Dead so you spend a couple hours setting cars up for recharge or replacement and then there is the cost, good powerful batteries are not cheap.

With the power consumption and power current requirements of today's electric Model Train motors and DCC decoders you can't just plop in a couple of "C" cell batteries and go, they would last about 10 min and be dead.

Yes the use of the Battery is being talked about and there are those trying to figure out a way to use them for just the reasons you mentioned but so far the toy train is the only trains using them in any groups and those are mostly children.

It's a good Idea but still a few years into the future at least in my opinion I can't see them taking over power supplies very soon.

Dan

Clearly the smart design would be to have battery power on board, but having it constantly charging from track power. All you'd need is 15/20 minutes run time on pure battery power to over come any dead spots (purposely or otherwise), so there wouldn't or shouldn't be a need for large battery packs.

At least that's what I'd aim for.

Clearly the smart design would be to have battery power on board, but having it constantly charging from track power

Having powered track seems to negate all the reasons for wanting battery power in the first place...simplicity, no shorts and no track to clean.

Felllows ,

A local fellow who comes around to public meets asked me if I was going to adopt  the batteries and R/C control method. ? I asked him what it was , he said it is being done in Texas , he , having read of it in some magazine {print ..no less..} . I figured it out that this fellow knew little more than what he had read . I then offered up that when it becomes "intuitive" plug and play , I would consider it. The point being , I waited for DCC to become something I could use , then jumped in whole heartedly.

This same fellow who often talks alot of trash , does not have a layout of his own. I have yet to tell him that my " water " even with the scratches  , is better than his water.

Track power charging on board  locomotive  batteries is viable . A large capacitor has the same net effect. If and when it becomes viable , I will consider it. I am not going to pioneer it .

Having powered track seems to negate all the reasons for wanting battery power in the first place...simplicity, no shorts and no track to clean.

Not really. A couple of quick points.

1. Bus wires. Just because you're running "self" powered locos, doesn't mean you won't have need for an electrical bus to power turnouts, signals, scenery items, etc. 

2. A battery system would allow you to only push feeders to the track where you want, no need for every other rail, every 3 feet, etc.

3. shorts primarily happen on turnouts and cross overs just isoloate them WAY away from the junction, and no short.

4. Build an auto reverser into each loco control prior to the battery, this would continue to charge the battery regardless of track orientation. Secondly, as the motor is driven off the "clean" power of the battery, you shouldn't have any issues (and might in fact help protect electronic parts in the motive power).

So with big  gaps, a built in auto reverser, and selective electrifcation of the line, you should get a gain in simplicity, be less dependant upon dirty  track, and minimize shorts.

A couple of quick points.

1. Bus wires. Just because you're running "self" powered locos, doesn't mean you won't have need for an electrical bus to power turnouts, signals, scenery items, etc. 

2. A battery system would allow you to only push feeders to the track where you want, no need for every other rail, every 3 feet, etc.

3. shorts primarily happen on turnouts and cross overs just isoloate them WAY away from the junction, and no short.

4. Build an auto reverser into each loco control prior to the battery, this would continue to charge the battery regardless of track orientation. Secondly, as the motor is driven off the "clean" power of the battery, you shouldn't have any issues (and might in fact help protect electronic parts in the motive power).

So with big  gaps, a built in auto reverser, and selective electrifcation of the line, you should get a gain in simplicity, be less dependant upon dirty  track, and minimize shorts.

In the scenario you describe it seems workable.

Lenz has an on-board power supply that can be added to some of thier decoders.  The supply is charged from the track during normal operation but kicks in automatically to power the loco over dead spots such as unpowered frogs, bad rail joints and dirt.

Here's a link:

http://www.lenz.com/products/index.htm

I have a loco with the USP Lenz decoder and it works after a fashion - but it's not magic.

Lenz calls this their "electronic flywheel" or Uninterruptible Power Supply technology. The idea is if the loco power pickup is interrupted, a large capacitor supplies power to the decoder until the track power is again restored.

The capacitor power is good for about 1 second. When it kicks in, you can tell. The loco keeps running but it starts to slow - so it's not magic. It does keep the loco running over the dirty spot, so that's good.

But I think the next step will be onboard batteries and direct DCC radio control that goes through the air not through the track. The loco decoder gets its power from the batteries, and the track power just trickle charges the batteries so they're always kept recharged.

This means you can have dead sections several feet long in areas of complex trackwork and it doesn't matter - it also means you don't care about reversing loops and flipping track polarity - you just gap the track or even have dead sections in a few places to avoid shorts and you're done.

It also means dirty track is much less of an issue. As long as the batteries can get a feed most of the time, you're good.

Fellows,

I would very much like to have a system which would allow this use of stored power. When it becomes something I can use.I will embrace it whole heartedly.

There are some really small battery powered R/C helicopters on the market now - they can only fly 15 or 20 minutes I think, but perhaps their battery technoogy can be adapoted to HO and larger scales.  I bet we have a few R/C enhtusiasts among us - so consider the gauntlet laid down!