Power, Sound, R/C
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BPE - Battery Powered Eggliner
Jul 25, 2007
By Jon C.A. DeKeles |
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Bio
Make your Aristo-Craft Eggliner run all on its own. Check out this great idea from the "No Scale and Western Railroad"
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 One of the best parts of going on the Garden Railroad tours at the Large Scale Train Show is getting new ideas. At one Convention we had the opportunity to see the "No Scale and Western" railroad operated by Dick and Sally McMurdie. 
This was the perfect backyard. A Large Scale Train, a swimming pool and a nice little workshop building. You could work in the shop and watch the trains run, or float on raft while the trains went around. 
One item I had noticed in Dick's workshop was an Aristo-Craft Eggliner that had a switch on it. I asked Dick about it and he showed me how this was his battery powered Eggliner. I thought, "What a great idea!" I have finally got around to making one and wanted to show you how. One change I made was to use a switch that would allow me to choose between battery power and track power. So why create a battery power Eggliner? I guess there are two reasons. - They are fun. An Eggliner running by itself looks great. Having one that is ready to run at a moment's notice, or having one you can take with you to run on someone else's layout is even better.
- It will make a super way for me to pull around my Trackman 2000 track cleaning car. Now when I get ready to run trains I now grab the Trackman 2000 in one hand the BPE (Battery Powered Eggliner) in the other and away I go. I set them on the track, flip the switch and the track cleans itself while I carry my engines and rolling stock from inside to the outside.
The Eggliner had no problem pulling the Trackman 2000 and in my test runs I have had my BPE run alone for over two hours on a fully charged battery. In the first part of this article we will look at each of the pieces that you will need to build a BPE. General Tools:
Soldering Gun and Solder
Wire Cutters
Shrink Tubing
Duct Tape
Two Sided Tape or VelcroThe Parts:  | Aristo-Craft Eggliner The Eggliner is built on the Aristo-Craft two axle power truck. The Eggliner is two ends of an observation car that are glued back to back. It has lights on the outside only. |
 | Battery We found that a standard Sealed Lead Acid Battery would work great powering our BPE. We went with a UB1213, which is a 12V, 1.3Ah and is the perfect size to fit inside our BPE. | Sealed Maintenance Free
The valve regulated, spill-proof construction of this battery allows trouble-free, safe operation in any position. There is no need to add electrolyte, as gases generated during charging are recombined in a unique "oxygen cycle".Long Service Life
Under normal operating conditions, four or five years of dependable service life can be expected in stand-by applications, or between 200 and 1000 charge/discharge cycles depending on the average depth of discharge. Long Shelf Life
A low self-discharge rate may allow storage of fully charged batteries for up to a year at room temperature before charging is required. Lower storage temperatures enhance shelf life characteristics even further. Wide Operating Temperature Range
May be discharged over a temperature range of -40 ?C to +60 ?C (-40 ?F to +140 ?F), and charged at temperatures ranging from -20 ?C to +50 ?C (4 ?F to +122 ?F). Rugged Construction
The high-impact resistant battery case is made either of non-conductive ABS plastic or styrene. Large capacity batteries frequently have polypropylene cases, all of these materials impart great resistance to shock, vibration, chemicals and heat. Specifications:
Length 3.82 in.
Width 1.69 in.
Height 2.01 in.
Terminal F1
1 Year Warranty
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 | Battery Charger with cord You need a charger designed to fully charge a battery and maintain it at proper storage voltage without the damaging effects caused by trickle chargers. | | Look for a charger that automatically charges any type 12 volt storage battery without over-charging. An ideal charger for this battery will charge at 500 mili-amps.If your charger has LED's they can provide visual indication of the charging mode. |
 | Power Switch We want our BPE to also be able to run on track power. This means we have to keep the track power away from the battery and the battery insolated from the track. We do this using a DPDT switch. | | This means Double Pull, Double Throw. It allows us to attach wire from the battery, and wires from the wheels to the switch and then select which we send to the motor. Make sure you get one with a rating of at least 2A. The ones we found were 6A@125VAC and work great. |
 | Plug and Jack Last but not least you need a way to attach the Battery Charger. We did not want to have to remove the battery from the BPE each time we wanted to charge it, nor did we want a wire hanging down from the unit. We found a matching set of plugs and jacks that we can mount on the bottom of the BPE and attach to the end of the cord on the battery charger. |
| BPE: How to Build |
| Thanks for the parts list and description. How do the parts go together... wired?? Any pictures of in-progress assembly/wiring? Any additional help will be appreciated. Thanks. |
| Frank Baccari - 07/01/2009 - 08:02 |
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