The Future

Jerry

Jerry, I call them coal powered cars. 

Don

Being a simpleton, I've discussed this with 3RO friends over the years, and here is

how I would like to try it, though I'm sure that I never will:

1. Get an 18V power drill battery or some "G" gauge battery; a big scale tender or diesel could hold it, perhaps; a boxcar certainly could.

2. Send these 18V DC to your existing TMCC board, skipping the rectifier portion that

turns track AC into DC for the internals. (Find out where that is; call Ohio.)

3. The TMCC board does not have to know where these 18V came from; shouldn't care.

Might want to check amperage, ohm-age and other electrical things. (Call Craftsman, then call Ohio, again.)

4. Remove center-rail pickups; add/modify charging port and on/off toggle to bottom of boxcar.

5. Remove center rail of track.

6. TMCC Command Base is still attached to the "outside" (now all rails are "outside") rail(s), and it never cared about the center rail, anyway.

7. Turn boxcar on.

8. Address engine as usual with CAB-1; run train until it won't run well; turn battery

off and charge it.

9. Again, your loco won't care where the juice came from.

Think that there are pitfalls? Duh. Do I know all the battery specs? No. But some of these

power tool batteries will do a ton of sawing and drilling before a recharge. Little trains

should be a piece of cake. Yeah, I know batteries come in all types, and some are engineered for slam-bam discharge, others for slow and steady, and so on. Bet that there's one that will do. (Again, "G" stuff.)

You could use your present locos, pretty much, with full TMCC features. And the track

would be, at long last, just track. (No electricity, except a trickle for signals.) 

No shorts. Dirty? So? And it would have the correct number of rails, but using equipment

and track that is actually useable by real people in real houses, not just a 2-rail O-club barn.

And just think: a 2-rail system with no reversing loop/wye short-circuit issues. It's just

track.

it's actually even worse, and if you think you're paying for electric cars now, just wait until your kids have to deal with cajillions of dead lead-acid batteries.  electric cars are politician's way of making everyone feel good about themselves... hydrogen power will be the fuel of the future, ...if they're smart (they = i sure won't be around for either this revelation of the horrid cleanup that awaits future generations if things keep going as they are today).

for trains, i'm shortly going to switch to coal.

Electric cars have gone far beyond lead-acid batteries.

well, whatever they are currently made of... probably more toxic anyway, they will still be hazardous waste.  i foresee megatons of these hitting the ocean floor eventually.

Possibly with enough force to release some methane from the hydrates. Then we could harvest that and still have energy to burn to power our new steam automobiles. 

No offense intended, but why would you make such a comment without first checking the facts?

Tesla Battery Recycling

Elon Musk's agenda for contributing to a better future for our kids is broad, ambitious and sophisticated.  Besides Tesla and SpaceX, he is the force behind Solar City, the largest residential solar provider in the US:

Solar City

The above cute cartoon notwithstanding, Tesla is in the middle of rolling out a nationwide "Supercharger" network, along with a detailed business model by which all the electricity is provided by Solar City. (And before you say that this is impossible, please review the plan). In fact, because of this, Tesla has publicly committed to never charging Tesla owners for supercharger fill-ups!  Long distance Tesla trips are and will remain free (both from a financial and a pollution perspective).

And then, there is his recently-announced "Hyperloop" concept for a supersonic "train" between LA and SF.  This system, should it ever be built (which, admittedly is unlikely), would also be 100% solar powered. 

These are big ideas.  They might work and they might not.  But rejecting them out of hand with shallow skepticism or worse, sarcasm, doesn't seem reasonable to me.

  As a 'fellow simpleton' I think your premise warrants attention. Frankly, I'd never even thought this through. I've considered getting into large scale someday and was leaning to battery/RC rather than track power but why not look at this too?  Makes good sense...

Looked at some electric cars these past couple of months and not one was a good buy from size or cost. Most are too small to be practicable besides you still have to plug them in like the cartoon above so what's the point.

I decided on a ford Explorer, decent gas milage and large enough to be comfortable. Plus having a good safety rating Which is good for my insurance. The electric cars had a higher insurance rating because of safety concerns.

I see no future for electric cars, too small, the batteries are too expensive to replace if needed And the technology is just not there, yet. 

A hybrid has the gasoline engine and the electric motor both connected directly to the drivetrain - they can and sometimes do run on gas alone.  The Volt is an electric car - an electric motor (actually three rigged up to run in parallel or series depending onthe whiums of the computers) powers the car all the time. But it carries a gasoline generator to refill the battery it it runs out of change. When it runs on battery power, its electric. And when the batteries run out of useable charge (usually when mines gone about 44-45 miles on battery) its still only electric - only its electric motors make it move - it just starts its gas generator to push power into the battery at a rate the computer determines to just match the rate at which the motor is taking it out.  Since the gasoline engine is not connected to the drivetrain in any way that can drive the car and its not classified by the government as a hybrid, but as an electric. 

My Volt is by far the best daily driver I have ever had - rather boring actually but smooth, quiet, and it makes a surprising difference never to have to worry about buying gas (Stopped one time in two years to buy about three gallons - the computer insists on running the motor-generator about an hour every three months or so just to make sure it runs and heat it up to drive out moisture, etc.). Otherwise I just plug it in when I get home.

I looked at a Tesla and test drove one: nice car - basically an electric Jaguar XKF in my book.  Much more stylish and powerful, but I kind of like my Volt: it's paid for and there will be even better EVs than even the Tesla down the road in a few years. And the Tesla I drove cost $109K drive out. The base model isn't a slug but you have to get the S model to get the truly good acceleration and the long electric range from the extended battery pack. But most, the Tesla would not have fit in the space I have in my garage because I have a rebuilt '69 GTC engine under a tarp on a pallet there - I spent the money the Tesla would have cost on that: I like electrics and admit they are the future, but I love multi-cylinder screaming high reving gas engines almost as much as I love running O gauge trains (well actually, maybe more but don't tell anyone). 

Beg to differ Lee, but if a car has a gasoline engine in addition to the battery-powered electrical motor, it's still considered a hybrid.  Doesn't matter if it's directly connected to the drive wheels or not; the gasoline engine powering the generators to the batteries in effect extends the range of the car.  I believe that even GM VP of Global Vehicle Development Jon Lauckner considers the Volt as a hybrid, as does the U.S. Department of Energy.

If it was all-electrical like the Telsa or something more humble like the Smart car or Nissan Leaf, then it would not be classified as a hybrid.

All I know about the future is it always looks better on TV.

Rusty

quote:

Looked at some electric cars these past couple of months and not one was a good buy from size or cost. Most are too small to be practicable besides you still have to plug them in like the cartoon above so what's the point.

What's the point?

- Some areas have Hydro-electic power

- Some areas have wind power

- Electrical loads are not even during a daily cycle. Ideally, the cars would be charging during the evening hours, when electricity usage is off peak.

- Maybe generating electricity is a more efficient use of fuel that running an engine.

As an aside:

In upstate NY there is a power system that uses some of the evening's surplus power to pump water uphill into reserviors. Then during the day, the water is allowed to run back turning generators. I think it is still in use.

Note that California and even humble Pennsylvania along the historic PA Turnpike has or is to install charging systems for a future of these types of vehicles.  Another important part of this type of transportation.  

It is actually quite eye-opening how many public charging stations are already available:

PlugShare

Many parking garages and airports have special parking for EV charging, and a lot of hotels/motels are coming on line as well.  It attracts business.

As for the energy footprint, there is truth to some of these analyses.  As others have said, the current situation with electric vehicles is far from perfect.  But the point isn't how it works today, it is how we build for tomorrow. Even if the "coal-powered car" schtick represented the truth (which, as I said, it does not), electricity represents a path forward. Gasoline is obviously a dead end. A lot of people who shout the loudest about spending our kids' money are perfectly willing to burn their oil.

We have to start somewhere.

Several years ago when I was into On30, there was a bunch of guys in Texas building a modular layout that was all RC/battery powered. The salvaged the guts out of RC cars and adapted them to On30 trains. Bigger locos had radio and battery in the tender while smaller locos were tethered to a boxcar filled with the radio and battery. One guy even built a railtruck that was self-contained with simple controls from a cheap toy RC car. No proportional speed control but it was still pretty cool.

They would set up at malls and such to display to the public. The trains ran for hours and nobody had to clean the track!  lol

"Tesla has publicly committed to never charging Tesla owners for supercharger fill-ups!  "

I hope so, for what those cars cost they ought to throw in some kind of freebie!

I don't understand why all the technological BS when it comes to an electric car. What is so hard about putting a gas powered generator under the hood and have it power an electric motor to run the car. Isn't this basically what a deisel locomotive does? Why do we need all this "recover braking energy", "recover coasting power", etc. it's just more crap to break down or need a techno-genius to fix. Don't tell me it will save the planet, tell me how much I can save on fuel costs and make the vehicle affordable and I'll get one. A hydrogen fuel cell is a great idea, they've used them for years on space missions so it's a proven technology and the oceans are full of it. The only draw back?, have to use electricity to split the water molecules, where does the electricity come from? Coal, oil and gas fired power plants for the most part and the more steps between the power generation and you decreases the efficiency of that power, you always loose a little bit at each step so just put the generator under the hood and hook it to your gas tank. How long could a home type generator run on a 15 gallon tank of gas?

All this being said I still like my 3 rail transformer powered trains and wouldn't switch over to battery power. Besides if they did start producing battery powered trains I'm pretty sure we'd have a mess like the competing remote systems Lionel and MTH have now.

Jerry

If we they would let us get to our own oil, there's enough for hundreds of years. Don

Sorry guys. Myself and some of us are getting off track. The post is a good one so lets keep about trains. Don

I'm still waiting for the geniuses at Apple to make a battery that runs the phone through afternoon drive!

Dons right , kinda reminds me of a picture I saw:

I actually did use a boxcar as a power supply for my old Railscope. Hooked several batterys together and then ran a power line to the locomotive to try and slow down the cameras appetite for power. Might work for an RC type of train set up.

Jerry

We will disagree then, because I side with the government agencies that classify the Volt as an EV and give buyers, like me, that hefty $7,500 subsidy when they buy one rather than the $2,500 subsidy you get with a plug-in hybrid like the Prius or no subsidy when you by a hybrid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...s#Federal_government

But it's a great car regardless of what you call it and proof that whatever problems GM had in the past, it got past them and can do world-class work: JD Power's highest owner satisfaction three years running.  If you having driven one the best way to describe it is: imagine an electric Audi A4.

Like I said, the US Dept. of Energy classifies the Volt as a Hybrid.  So does the EPA.  Specifically, they call the Volt a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.  And last I checked, the US Dept. of Energy and the EPA are part of the government.

Check here,

here,

here,

and here.

Even hybridcars.com (which the US Dept. of Transportation uses as a reference by the way) classifies the Volt as a hybrid.

Here's Chevrolet's website where they refer to the US Dept. of Energy site when you want to assess what vehicle qualifies for the tax credits you mention (The same government entity that classifies the Volt as a hybrid).  Click here, choose a state and read the first bullet in the "Here's How" section.

And click here to where the automotive websites refer to for the eligible tax credits.  Take notice that it's part of the US Dept. of Energy, and take a close look at the category title and what car is included in that list, along with the available maximum tax credit amount. 

Since you referenced a link from Widipedia, you might be interested in knowing that Wiki's article on the Volt also describes it as a hybrid.  So does that very article you referenced earlier.

Here's a snippet from that article you used:

Quote:

"Both the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle and the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, launched in December 2010, are eligible for the maximum $7,500 tax credit"  

"I believe that nicotine is not addictive."

 -- William Campbell

     President & CEO, Phillip Morris, USA

manufacturers don't lie?

...it must be a fun world you live in.

Let me make sure I understand your argument.  Is it like this?

1) Lionel says that its Armed Forces Collection is "Made in the USA".

2) Manufacturers lie.

3) Lionel is a manufacturer.

4) Therefore, the Armed Forces Collection is not made in the USA.

I don't mean to be harsh, but I consider Tesla to be one of the most ethical companies in the world.   Do you have even one single bit of evidence that anything in that article is false or misleading?

Life cycle management has been enforce for manufacturing for a number of years.  We've been ordering computer equipment from two major suppliers and you can see a line item in the configuration tool on recycling/recovery.  This includes the products, the components in the products, the packing material, even the owners manual which seems to be mistaken for packing material by most consumers based on product reviews and on-line Q&A places like online forums.

Over here, when you buy a household electrical item, you have to pre-pay a recycling charge at the time of purchase.  

Yes, even at the wholesale level. One of my larger electrical supplier has a division for recycle of old electrical components.

 example:  Light fixtures removed from a remodel job, if palletize, will be removed from the job site.  In some cases the ballast has to be removed from the light fixture and shipped separate.   Note there are charges involved. I have also recycled the batteries from power tools, again there is a charge involved.   In most cases cost to a dumpster is less.  Not sure who the dumpster police are.  I have yet to see the trash man bring anything back. 

It was interest to note, one dumpster pick-up at a job site the truck drive crawled-up on the load before tarp-ing it.  When he came down he was all smiles.  ???  What's with the smile???  Lots of metal.  He said he would take the dumpster to the local metal shredder, they would run a large crane supported magnet over the truck and remove all ferrous metal.  Apparently he (the driver) collected the check for the metal before he made the trip to the land fill.  (There is hope)     

It has been an interesting thread. 

I'm not sure the ease in wiring would be a determining factor for many folks, as we seem to first buy trains and then set up the track to run them on.

Me, I'm happy with the status quo.  I have a couple of my favorite engines that were made in limited quantities, and may likely not be made again, so I will hard wire my future layouts anyway.

One thing that I hopefully will change, is that I would like to go back to the future, in that I would love to have some outdoor track so that I can fool around with live steam.

Jim

MSN this morning concerning the Tesla, all electric car.   We haven't got that battery technology perfected yet.  There are special instruction concern Li (Lithium metal) fires, and the use of water.  Note the article mentions the fire was difficult to extinguish.  We had discussed this in the first Thread on the Electric Forum.  Lithium Polymer batteries.