Replacing 9 volt battery with BCR?

You can install a BCR in a Railsounds locomotive.  What you need is a charging circuit kit as well.  J&W sells a charging circuit kit for $19.95 as well as the BCR.  I've converted several Lionel locomotives.  It isn't very difficult.

Stuart

Wow, I never thought about a charging circuit.  Is it difficult to install?

If you're going to go to the trouble of building the charging circuit, building a clone of the BCR is not much more work, and it'll save even more money.

come on guys I have posted this before.

you do not need a charging circuit, all you need is this.

dallee for lionel

look for number 598.

I have several and they work great.

and I am not connected with dallee. 

A BCR is 25 bucks, and a Dallee capacitor bank with the built-in charging circuit is 40. How many of those do you have to buy before it's actually cheaper to install TMCC, at which point you don't need the battery or the BCR any more because you're running on constant voltage? Just a thought. 

Note that the BCR is $25, but the optional charger is $20 extra, so the prices between the two are very similar for Lionel products.

The Dallee is just different packaging for the exact same concept.  Nothing wrong with it, but I can still build the equivalent circuit for around $12-13 for my Lionel trains and dispense with the $40 charge...

John, would you be so kind to either post or email me the schematic for the charging part?  I've got several PS-1 locomotives that I'll be building BCRs for, and if I can get a few more parts and build the charging circuits, then I'll add them to my TMCC locomotives as well.  I run command sometimes, but mostly conventional, so I like having the batteries in my TMCC locomotives to keep the sounds.  I'm a mechanical engineer, and kind electrical stuff black magic.  But I can follow a schematic with parts list to connect the dots and build basic circuits.

The way I look at it ,I would rather spend the $25.00 for a BCR, then $125.00 for a new board,when they blow. I have over 20 BCR,S in MTH loco and diesels. I can let them set around for a year or more and when I put them on the track, I just wait a minite or so,and away they go.   Thanks  Rich

here's the post on making a BCR,

https://ogrforum.com/t...tery-replacement-bcr

Thanks, but I asked for the charging circuit, not the BCR.

but I am not good enough yet to build my own.

Step up to the challenge!

No need to have a BCR in a Lionel locomotive, MTH PS 1's,  yes, PS2's maybe. I replace batteries in my PS2's about every 7 years or so. No need for BCR's there. 

If your storing your MTH engines for any length of time and yes I would use BCR's otherwise a waste of money in my opinion. 

The reason for the battery in the TMCC/Legacy stuff is for issue with sound continuity.  Even in command operation, you can have issues with the sound dropping out.  Usually the battery solves that problem.  Of course, the 9V alkaline battery is prone to leak when it dies, or sometimes before.  The BCR doesn't leak, and never needs replacement.

I will, as soon as you provide the instructions!

Designing the charging circuit is part of the challenge.   I haven't done one as I haven't gotten to wanting to equip the stuff with batteries.  Someday...

I bought a homemade BCR unit for the 3 volt replacement of the double or triple A batteries which works excellently and the cost was much cheaper than buying one through the other company. I'll let the person who made these post his thoughts if he wants to. I have one in my MTH JETS engine and it works great.

As for putting in a battery for a TMCC engine, you only need it if you run the engine  in conventional operation. If you operate in TMCC mode, it is a waste of time putting in a 9 volt battery. It could leak and cause you more problems.

I think the only time having a battery in a TMCC engine running in a command environment is good is when you have sound drop problems across switches etc

Actually Ted, there is a current discussion going on where some Legacy models have audio that drops out on power interruptions and requires a power cycle to restore it.  The battery prevents that from happening.

Pity, as designing a charging circuit is way above my current capability (see what I did there?).  I wouldn't even know where to start.  It's all black magic to me.  Maybe one of the EEs at work could help me.  The BCRs will be easy because the thread about them lists parts and assembly order, like LEGO instructions.  That I can do.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to build LED circuits for my locomotives, cabeese, and passenger cars.  It's slow going, but I've been compiling the info from the threads here and info elsewhere as I work to come up with a system for my rolling stock.  Once I have a place to work at home, I hope to start in on that.

The charging circuit should be easy as well.  Here's something that should work.  It just has to supply around 9V to charge the battery.

Here's a simple circuit to charge the BCR up to around 9.3-9.4 volts, about what an Alkaline battery would have.  When power is interrupted, the BCR maintains the voltage.  The LM7810 is current limited so it'll do the trick without extra parts.  The blocking diode is to prevent the BCR from discharging back into the regulator when it doesn't have power.

The bridge and diode are both 1A devices.

John, you are The Man.  +100 interwebs for you today.  I'll let you know when I build one of these how it goes.

I've always meant to try it, but I really haven't had the need, so I haven't gotten around to it.  I can't imagine why this would be an issue, it's a really simple requirement.  Really, the BCR ends up being a giant filter cap for the power supply.