richard carr
Western Thunderer
Ian
Yes I must remember to put the screws back in !
Richard
Yes I must remember to put the screws back in !
Richard
DCC Battery Powered DCC
- Thread starter richard carr
- Start date
FH47331
Member
Hi Richard,
Thanks for that, sorry for the delayed reply. I agree about the main advantage being the lack of need to power the track, but my thought was that constant handling was more likely to cause damage, especially to a detailed loco. So as you commented, something like a dedicated charging road that is electrically isolated from the rest of the layout, seems to be the best of both worlds - charges the batteries, gives freedom without constant handling, and avoids all the messy wiring up of pointwork!
Can I ask where the battery charging circuit that your using came from - is it a home creation or an off the shelf option?
Richie
richard carr
Western Thunderer
Hi Richie
I use a battery charger, an HT RC 100 AC/DC, you can get them on Amazon for about £60, they will charge LIPO, NiMH, Lead Acid batteries etc.
They are intended for charging Lipo batteries for radio control cars, but they do the NiMH ones that I use really well, you can set the charge to current yourself, I typically use 0.5 Amps and it takes about 2 hours to fully charge AAA batteries.
There are lots of similar alternative chargers on Amazon.
Richard
I use a battery charger, an HT RC 100 AC/DC, you can get them on Amazon for about £60, they will charge LIPO, NiMH, Lead Acid batteries etc.
They are intended for charging Lipo batteries for radio control cars, but they do the NiMH ones that I use really well, you can set the charge to current yourself, I typically use 0.5 Amps and it takes about 2 hours to fully charge AAA batteries.
There are lots of similar alternative chargers on Amazon.
Richard
richard carr
Western Thunderer
Paul
Yes and no, in this instance it is just a really neat way to wire everything up, there is no need for extra power with a 6W maxon motor, it isn't ever going to draw more than half an amp. The other thing with battery power is that it really helps to make it very easy to remove the decoder as you can't easily program except by removing it.
I am about to try the ADAPLU in a Heljan 33 to see how that works, the extra power may just be enough.
Richard
Yes and no, in this instance it is just a really neat way to wire everything up, there is no need for extra power with a 6W maxon motor, it isn't ever going to draw more than half an amp. The other thing with battery power is that it really helps to make it very easy to remove the decoder as you can't easily program except by removing it.
I am about to try the ADAPLU in a Heljan 33 to see how that works, the extra power may just be enough.
Richard
SimonT
Western Thunderer
The next step in developing my battery power installation is replacing the mechanical on/off switch with a reed switch as in the Tam Valley and S-Cab installations; neither business list the reed switch as a separate item so I obtained something suitable from RS.
This installation had 'interesting' properties. The normal state is off and bringing the magnet up to the reed switched started the DCC boot up sequence. From then on things were a bit of a lottery. Some times it shut down straight away, some times it ran for 30 seconds and then shut down and sometimes it ran until I commanded a forward movement, whereupon it shut dwon! Once it just ran and wouldn't shut down when the magnet was placed by the switch. I have moved the switch away fron the area of the loud speaker coils.
Everything is well within the capacity of the reed switch, I've tried an alternate with no improvement and the batteries are fully charged.
Any thoughts? Should I be using a latching reed switch, although I cannot find such a thing in RS of Farnell.
Puzzled of Powys
This installation had 'interesting' properties. The normal state is off and bringing the magnet up to the reed switched started the DCC boot up sequence. From then on things were a bit of a lottery. Some times it shut down straight away, some times it ran for 30 seconds and then shut down and sometimes it ran until I commanded a forward movement, whereupon it shut dwon! Once it just ran and wouldn't shut down when the magnet was placed by the switch. I have moved the switch away fron the area of the loud speaker coils.
Everything is well within the capacity of the reed switch, I've tried an alternate with no improvement and the batteries are fully charged.
Any thoughts? Should I be using a latching reed switch, although I cannot find such a thing in RS of Farnell.
Puzzled of Powys
richard carr
Western Thunderer
Simon
No idea why you are having those problems, I did try one a few years back but it wasn't reliable enough either.
I'm happy with a hidden mechanical switch.
Richard
No idea why you are having those problems, I did try one a few years back but it wasn't reliable enough either.
I'm happy with a hidden mechanical switch.
Richard
simond
Western Thunderer
I’d somehow lost track of this thread, so apologies that this link may be a bit out of time. SimonT pointed me back here from the BPRC thread.
Second hand Duchess
it’s my experience with the Tam Valley equipment. Despite the obvious benefits of R/C & DCC combined, I found it unreliable and disappointing, but others seem to have a more positive view.
The availability of suitable batteries & some very nice microelectronics makes BPRC in some form, almost inevitable. I’d love Zimo to make an integrated loco unit that handles R/C plus everything current decoders do, and charge manage the batteries too, but when I contacted them, Peter Ziegler said it was not his current priority.
atb
Simon
Second hand Duchess
it’s my experience with the Tam Valley equipment. Despite the obvious benefits of R/C & DCC combined, I found it unreliable and disappointing, but others seem to have a more positive view.
The availability of suitable batteries & some very nice microelectronics makes BPRC in some form, almost inevitable. I’d love Zimo to make an integrated loco unit that handles R/C plus everything current decoders do, and charge manage the batteries too, but when I contacted them, Peter Ziegler said it was not his current priority.
atb
Simon
SimonT
Western Thunderer
Simon,
reading your Duchess thread I see we came to the same conclusion - batteries. Earlier this week I had a conversation with Pete Steinmetz at Tam Valley and a battery kit for the small 250mH should be crossing the Atlantic soon. I intend to leave out the voltage regulator and I'll report back.
Simon
reading your Duchess thread I see we came to the same conclusion - batteries. Earlier this week I had a conversation with Pete Steinmetz at Tam Valley and a battery kit for the small 250mH should be crossing the Atlantic soon. I intend to leave out the voltage regulator and I'll report back.
Simon
simond
Western Thunderer
Hi Simon,
I certainly did conclude that there was a battery issue, and so bought some more. I ended up with various configurations, and never got to a satisfactory conclusion, despite some further tests. My first 18650s were very poor indeed.
I don’t have sufficient hard evidence to prove it conclusively, but my gut feel is that the receiver was struggling to provide enough current to the decoder and something, somewhere was “browning out” as a result. The potential solutions to this are to buy the heavy duty receiver (bigger, and yet more expensive) or to fit a truly massive KA cap to the decoder. It would be nice if you could simply connect the battery to the KA connections of the decoder, but I suspect that you’d then need another battery to supply the receiver, as feeding both from the same source is likely to end in tears, and smoke, I fear. And two batteries would be twice the hassle, of course.
if the Tam Valley system comes up trumps it would be a great solution for those of us with a DCC-equipped fleet, it would be possible to fit r/c to some locos as a switchable alternate for the days you want to run dead rail, and revert for home use, for example. I feel the cost is too high to consider a wholesale conversion, even if there were room, which in some cases, might be a challenge - Ixion Fowler, for example.
will watch with interest!
Simon
I certainly did conclude that there was a battery issue, and so bought some more. I ended up with various configurations, and never got to a satisfactory conclusion, despite some further tests. My first 18650s were very poor indeed.
I don’t have sufficient hard evidence to prove it conclusively, but my gut feel is that the receiver was struggling to provide enough current to the decoder and something, somewhere was “browning out” as a result. The potential solutions to this are to buy the heavy duty receiver (bigger, and yet more expensive) or to fit a truly massive KA cap to the decoder. It would be nice if you could simply connect the battery to the KA connections of the decoder, but I suspect that you’d then need another battery to supply the receiver, as feeding both from the same source is likely to end in tears, and smoke, I fear. And two batteries would be twice the hassle, of course.
if the Tam Valley system comes up trumps it would be a great solution for those of us with a DCC-equipped fleet, it would be possible to fit r/c to some locos as a switchable alternate for the days you want to run dead rail, and revert for home use, for example. I feel the cost is too high to consider a wholesale conversion, even if there were room, which in some cases, might be a challenge - Ixion Fowler, for example.
will watch with interest!
Simon
richard carr
Western Thunderer
I have 8 locos equipped with the Tam valley system, all of them work just fine with 6 watt maxon motors and ABC gearboxes or a RG7 motor gearbox.
The batteries are AAA NiMh usually 6 of them with a 12 volt regulator.
Richard
The batteries are AAA NiMh usually 6 of them with a 12 volt regulator.
Richard
richard carr
Western Thunderer
Simon
It is a Pololu 12V step up voltage regulator which I bought from Litchfield Station (a US model shop).
My set up requires a maximum of 0.5 amps, which those batteries will easily supply.
Richard
It is a Pololu 12V step up voltage regulator which I bought from Litchfield Station (a US model shop).
My set up requires a maximum of 0.5 amps, which those batteries will easily supply.
Richard
SimonT
Western Thunderer
A bit of progress on a Dapol 08.
The speaker is on the underside of the plastic deck which mounts onto an adator epoxied to the plastic Dapol motor cage (two screws and nuts are visible). The deck has to come out through the roof as the plastic body moulding is narrow at footplate level. Bottom right is the Tam Valley Mk4 receiver, above and to the left is a pcb wiring centre and regulator mounting and top right is the Zimo 645 from You Choos. The P9 battery is temporary as I am still waiting for a battery system ordered from Tam Valley at the end of March. The bigger power reserves of the Tam Valley battery are needed as it can only shift 14 wagons without running out of steam; I need it to shift 19.
The two pins sticking up from the wiring centre allow for programming of the chip. With power off, disconnect the receiver and place a lead constructed for the job onto the two pins and programming can take place.
Simon
The speaker is on the underside of the plastic deck which mounts onto an adator epoxied to the plastic Dapol motor cage (two screws and nuts are visible). The deck has to come out through the roof as the plastic body moulding is narrow at footplate level. Bottom right is the Tam Valley Mk4 receiver, above and to the left is a pcb wiring centre and regulator mounting and top right is the Zimo 645 from You Choos. The P9 battery is temporary as I am still waiting for a battery system ordered from Tam Valley at the end of March. The bigger power reserves of the Tam Valley battery are needed as it can only shift 14 wagons without running out of steam; I need it to shift 19.
The two pins sticking up from the wiring centre allow for programming of the chip. With power off, disconnect the receiver and place a lead constructed for the job onto the two pins and programming can take place.
Simon
'shunting'....layouts. The GP60 is a bigger beast so might be a worthy target for a test set up at some point.