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At risk of adding another notch on my belt of guru annoyances...

A regular battery is fine for testing, but is not advisable for actually running the engine for any long duration.  The charge circuit, to the best of my understanding, constantly charges the battery when the engine is powered, and as such it will be putting power into the battery... not a good idea for regular batteries, unless you like them to start leaking.  

If you're going the BCR route, I'd wait until you get it to run the engine for more than a few minutes of testing.  You could also pick up a 9v (8.4v) NiMH battery from any store with a large selection of batteries.  The sort marked as 'pre-charged' or 'Low Self-discharge' can be used right out of the package without needing to be charged.  As a note if you go this route, make sure the battery is the NiMH type, not Li-ion. 

JGL

Dave, is it a good idea to spend $20 without knowing for sure if the 5-volt board is any good?  If it fails and you don't have a fleet of 5-volt locos with batteries, you'd have no use for it other than try to post it on the for sale forum.  Half of my 5-volt fleet failed, and I just lined up the rest assembly line style and upgraded them to 3-volt, selling off the good 5-volt boards.

Gene, I hate to burst your bubble, but are you sure it's 8.4 volts?  The old 9-volt alkaline batteries had 6 cells, each yielding 1.5 volts.  When the rechargeables came out, they also had 6 cells, but NiCad & NiMH yield only 1.2 volts per cell, or 7.2 volts.  Nevertheless, the battery makers still labeled them as 9 volts. 

The 5-volt boards DCS units need an 8.4 volt rechargeable, which have 7 cells that yield 8.4 volts.  If you battery doesn't say 8.4 volts in fine print somewhere, it probably isn't suitable for the DCS unit.

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