BOB WALKER posted:

Someone had to try this, so why not now? I first tested my LC+ engines to determine what lower voltage would work and it turned out that the LC+ rectifiers would start up at 8VDC and run well at 12-13VDC. This is the charged voltage most like seen with the LiPO or NiMH batteries I have been using. My original idea was to use the same LiPO battery I have used in several previous conversions and mount it inside the shell. But when I removed the shell, there was so little room without relocating the electronics, I resorted to plan B. As a first pass, I wired the input to the LC+ electronics to an external cable and followed the rectifier with a NiMH battery on a trailing flat car which I've done before and provides a good test of the whole idea.  See attached picture.

It ran pretty well and behaved as it should.  Next step is to figure out to get that LiPO battery inside the shell. It won't be easy.

If the shell is like the MPC flavor of this engine, the roof structure is holllow. Would it be possible to locate the batteries in this area?

Steve

Seems like people bring this up on a repetitive cycle.  IF LC Plus can run on 10V AC and it can, why not DC which is a smoother input and the type of power that comes with a set.  Just do it if you want.  Nothing new here.  A 12V pack, would be fine.  Steam should be easy as the tender has nothing but a speaker.  For diesel use a freight car if it won't fit inside.  G

The effort continues. As mentioned previously, When I removed the LC+ shell, there was not much room for a battery. Previous battery power conversions have placed the LiPO battery under the decoder electronics board which provides good center of gravity and a platform for the decoder board as shown in the 1st photo. The LC+ electronics is mounted vertically as shown in the 2nd photo, which makes its relocation trickier. Would welcome any and all suggestions before proceeding.

(1) Make a new fuel tank out of hollow plastic and put the battery there.  If there still isn't enough room, your other option is to remove a motor, but you'll lose half your tractive effort.

(2) Put the battery in a dummy engine, or boxcar.

Your dilemma speaks to my earlier point about battery technology not being sufficiently miniaturized for O scale at present.  G-scale is a natural because it's larger, and there are serious challenges with electrical pickup on outdoor layouts.  I love the LC+ idea of R/C direct to the loco:  who needs a "command base?"  But until batteries become smaller and more powerful, I would be sticking with rectified track power.

I kinda like the idea of a battery car.

The trailing battery car concept works out OK. When I did my very first battery power setup in 2011, that's what I used. My first pass with the LC+ engine is also configured this way. Locating the battery inside the diesel shell is a challenge I just can't pass up. BTW, I still run conventional.

Would two of these hump packs fit in between the rear motor and board pod? The motor and rear coupler wires can be rerouted.

I tried a Ryobi tool battery on a stripped down williams, less their actual ancient electronics with a motor controller i got off a website.  And low and behold, it worked.  That is it made the carcass of an engine go backwards or forwards depending on various settings.   all very entertaining.  and then i stuck the ryobi lipo battery back in it charging cradle I already had.  Of course if ryobi and similar tool manufacturers would make something "slim line" .. that's be nice but minor issue for me at least.

Bob,

How long will the locomotive run before you need to recharge the battery?

Bob, could you build your own battery to fit around all the electronics?  What amperage is that battery in the photo?  Or maybe several smaller, flat pack Lipos???

What are you controlling it with, the controller that came with the engine?

Maybe take the guts and put them in a Williams E7!  Plenty of room in there.  Mine currently has a BlueRail board, battery, speaker, and bluetooth sound board, along with the on/off switch and charging components.

Battery operation will take off once there's a Plug&Play system available.

The LiPO battery in the photo is 1200 mah which would give a bit over 1 hour running time based on the drains I measured on the LC+ diesel. I am using the controller that came with the engine. I am thinking about that good idea of breaking the battery pack into smaller stacks I could place around the electronics. I want to stick with the LC+ frame and shell.

One does wonder why the manufacturers are not more into this idea.

My interest in this is:

- no hassle with wiring

- no issues with track power issues

- ultimately no 3rd rail... (but gimballed trucks)

I think I have figured out how to get a LiPO battery inside the shell. I ordered the battery and will keep everyone posted.

Use batteries like these 3 cell lipos from eflite.  The small jst connectors are great for this application too.

The smaller one is 800 mAh and the larger one in 1000 mAh.

Have you explored the individual Lipo cells and making your own packs. They can even be separated and wired together. This may help you fit them into a tight space. The drawback is there is no built in charging control and you will need a pretty sophisticated charger to detect the cell voltage. I used to do this all the time when I flew model airplanes. I still have my chargers.  

patternpilot posted:

Have you explored the individual Lipo cells and making your own packs. They can even be separated and wired together. This may help you fit them into a tight space. The drawback is there is no built in charging control and you will need a pretty sophisticated charger to detect the cell voltage. I used to do this all the time when I flew model airplanes. I still have my chargers.  

Why take apart cells?  Why not just buy legitimate smaller batteries and just connect them in series or parallel depending if you need more duration or more power?  Then you are not ruining the integrity of the battery and can charge safely with a regular lipo charger.

Ron

Ron, You don't take the cells apart. There are places that sell individual cells and you make your own packs to the voltage and amp capacity you want. Like I said it takes special charging equipment to charge them and you must be able to monitor the individual cells while charging.  

Ok...So you are building cells that do not have charging control and need special charging equipment.  Why do that when you can buy two batteries and use a Y connector in either series (More Power) or parallel (More duration)?

Like you, I'm and RC pilot, so I have lots of lipos.  Due to compartment size I often join up to batteries for a proper fit.  

These first batts are too big for trains unless you put them in a tender or box car.  But they illustrate what I'm talking about.  And while you do need a Lipo charger, the can be charged with control either together or independently both reliably and safely.  Note the batteries must be identical... Same voltage and same mah.  I even make sure they are the same brand. 

So this first picture is two 11.1v 2200mah Lipos.  With the series y connector I now have 22.2v and 2200mah. (More power, same run time)

In this next picture are the same two batteries but with a parallel Y connector.  Now I would have 11.1v but 4400 mah (Same power, more run time)

Next, here are some small lipos that would be great for a diesel engine with cramped space.   The purple batts are 2 cell 7.4v 460 mah.  The green ones are a single cell 3.7v.  NOTE - This is for illustrative purposes only.  Those green batteries are NOT the same and should not be paired together.  I just wanted to show that there are ready made batteries that could be used in our trains.

Have Fun!

Ron

Good clarification Ron. These cells are what I am talking about. They can be placed anywhere and can be kept separate, just wired together and shrink wrapped. You need to install a balancing lead for the charger to properly and safely charge them. Just pointing out that there are other options than pre-made packs.

High Power Polymer Li-Ion Cell: 3.7V 6400mAh (8048168-5C, 24Wh, 32A rate) - UN38.3 Passed

FWIW, while identical Lithium batteries "can" be charged without monitoring individual cells, it's occasionally a dangerous thing to do.  I was involved in the development of an aircraft battery using high energy lithium cells, each cell was independently charged and monitored, cell temperature, charging current, and current voltage were all monitored to insure all the cells charged evenly.  The consequences of failure were extreme, the cells were 3/4" thick, 12" long, and 7" wide!  One test where the cell temperature ran away blew open the case that was supposed to contain any runaway and damaged the test chamber sufficiently that it took almost a month to get back into production!  Needless to say, some significant changes to the design were mandated before continuing!

John, 

If you look at the batteries I have, Charging using the white plug  will ensure balanced charging of multiple cell packs.

No one should ever walk away from charging any lipos, ever.

Ron

After seeing the videos at two different manufacturers batteries blowing up during testing, I have developed a very healthy respect for rechargeable Lithium batteries! 

Remember the old #6 dry cell, about 6" tall and a couple of inches in diameter?  One of the companies was testing a wet Lithium cell of that size in a test chamber, and one of the tests was a over-current charging test.  The thing fired off like a rocket, a tongue of flame about 4 feet long erupted from one end and continued for minutes!  The other test I described was actually an explosion, there was battery parts all over the test chamber.  Lithium battery technology is not to be trifled with, and the larger the battery, the more danger it poses.

Oh, and I've also seen a model airplane Li-Po go up in flames, and it was being charged on a proper tester with individual cell monitoring. There was no putting out the flames, we scooped it off the bench and tossed it outside and let it burn.  I have no idea what went wrong in that case, the charger was in use before and after with other batteries without incident.  My brother was really big into model aircraft, and he fell in love with the battery power.  It usually works fine, but now and again...

Interesting topic and posts.  Thanks.  Click here to see a web site with articles about S-gauge battery power in general and systems in use and available today.  I'm not sure about its use with FlyerChief engines, but am wondering if perhaps the latest FlyerChief-Bluetooth Baldwin diesel switchers could be converted to use it (that way there's no smoke unit to worry about drawing more current that currently available -- pun intended, albeit a lame one).

Dave 

I think most manufacturers of larger hobby lithium polymer batteries would like consumers to restrict their use to outside railroads, because of the small danger of charging disasters.  Smaller batteries, such as those in cell phones, appear to be safer.  I don't know if that is intrinsically due to their smaller capacity, or some technical features of the charging circuits.  The advice about never leaving these batteries (hobby variety) to charge unattended is good advice from what I've heard, and is a major inconvenience for some folks.  Just passing along the wisdom of the crowd (which is sometimes wrong, but probably not in this case).

Concerns posted are well taken and based on good info. I have three OGauge battery powered locos (GP9, RS-3 & NW-20)  that have been running nicely for over two years and have been repeatedly demonstrated. Some cautions I observe is to carefully monitor cell voltage before recharging and never leave a recharging battery  for too long  or alone.  I built a neat plug in battery voltage monitor for easy checking. (It was shown on the forum). The size batteries I am using seem to be high volume and relatively problem free. I agree that some care must be taken with the high energy batteries.

while an ungainly form factor for this application -- one imagines the ryobi, milwaukee, and dewalt style replaceable tool batteries are super safe overall because of their wide spread use, etc...  of course you need a secondary cradle to hold them onto the say the flat car and some wires to the engine.   but, otherwise the infrastructure is already there, they are readily available, are usually somewhere around 18-20v and pretty inexpensive.

There are a number of rechargeable Lithium battery chemistries, some are touchier than others.

Six Lithium-ion Battery Chemistries: Not all Batteries are Created Equal

There are also types that aren't represented in this article.

In the end I'd personally sacrifice realism for convenience.  One thing would be to not have batteries in every engine.  On a diesel this is "solved" by making the fuel tank the battery.  Perhaps it clips on and off, and there's a set of sizes that work for most models.   That's a problem for sound -- but maybe that just moves the speakers inside the main structure.    On many steam engines, the most obvious place for a battery is the tender -- tender batteries make sense to me and there's probably enough room for a speaker as well.   Given that -- tender batteries would not necessarily match their engines.  But all that would be compensated for by convenience and the ability to re-charge with ease.  Not to mention the knock on effects of not having a ac transformer.   Anyway, maybe there are other ideas for slide in/slide out batteries of some form that work for most or many configurations & engine types.

In the end, I'll probably just keep supplying power via the rails.

It's nice to see the projects though.

It is finally completed, what is most likely the very first battery powered LionChief Plus. I ran complete tests and compared it to an identical model track powered LionChief Plus. Performance was identical and the battery powered unit  does everything it should. Will be demonstrating it soon. Attached photos show external and internal views.

Here are the battery powered LionChief photos.

Access to the battery is via that small jack next to the on off switch. I can plug in a self powered digital voltmeter to monitor the battery voltage. (see photo). My next technical project is an on-track recharging scheme.

You know, is it possible this could made to work for legacy since its wireless also.  i had some luck sending commands to a nearby engine by plugging the legacy signal wire onto some nearby but unused track for the antenna.  but it was more of an off hand, "hey i wonder if this will work" kind of thing, not operational.

I assume that any wireless loco that is track powered could be converted to battery power. This, of course, excludes conventional power locos.

I can do an experiment.  I can alligator clip an 18v Ryobi lipo battery to an unpowered (that is no transformer powered) track with legacy engine.  And then wire the legacy to a nearby but disconnected 40" track segment.  And see if I can get the thing to start up.  I have noticed the ryobi battery is 20v on my volt meter but... that's probably ok.

BOB WALKER posted:

I assume that any wireless loco that is track powered could be converted to battery power. This, of course, excludes conventional power locos.

Unless that locomotive required AC for the motor driver board.  The TMCC locomotives would not run on DC, and at least older Legacy would also have a problem.

I know that new Legacy still say AC Only, and I assume that Lionel may know what they're talking about.  For instance for my VL-BB...

Power your VISION Big Boy with an alternating-current (50-60Hz AC) transformer only.
Powering your locomotive with a direct-current (DC) transformer, or in excess of 19 volts
AC, may result in damage to sensitive electronic components.

I've dug it out, got a 18v 2 amp lionel starter set wall wart here.  Reads just a tad over 18v.  And the engine is a GP-35 with IR xmitter.  Not sure of the exact year.