Power, Sound, R/C
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Battery
Battery Power / Radio Control Part 1
Feb 18, 2004
By Randy Mower |
Author
Bio
Advances in technology have made battery powered radio controlled trains more reliable and reasonably priced than ever before.
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Advances in technology have made battery powered radio controlled trains more reliable and reasonably priced than ever before. This is the first part of a series of articles on battery power, radio control for large-scale trains. In this series of articles we will look at the options for battery power, the different radio control systems available, and some examples of installing and converting engines to battery power R/C. In some later articles we will look at adding a sound system and integrating it with an onboard R/C receiver. History of Battery Power Batteries date back to 1789 when Italian physicist Count Alessandro Volta build the first "voltaic pile." (I guess we now know where the term "Volt", the measurement of electricity came from.) He stacked copper, zinc and cardboard soaked in salt water. When both ends of the stack were connected, the electricity flowed. The first battery. In the last 200+ years batteries have really improved. I am sure you remember as a kid how fast our toys ran through batteries and you were always having to buy new ones. Now our homes are full of rechargeable batteries powering everything from our Game Boys to cell phones, and of course trains! Check out the The History of Batteries at the Energizer site. There is a lot on interesting historical information as well as useful information on battery care. (Did you know that Bob Gentile is older than the 9V battery? -- Most of us are.) Why Use Battery Power? Why would you want to use battery power to run your trains when you can just put them on the track, hook up the transformer and run for an unlimited amount of time? While there are pros and cons for using battery power radio control, the use of battery power and radio control has become more and more mainstream in recent years and developments in technology have added great improvements in running time and reliability for using battery power R/C. Some manufacturers such as Aristocraft have even added simple "plug and play" upgrade-ability to convert many of their products to battery power R/C. So what are some of the pros and cons for battery powered trains? Utilizing battery R/C adds a new level of operational realism and flexibility that is often difficult (and expensive) to achieve using conventional power packs. Probably the most widely cited reason people go to battery R/C is to eliminate the problems associated with power pickup through the rails. If you use battery R/C you will never have to worry about cleaning your track or chasing down bad electrical connections again.
If you are running more than one train at the same time, battery power eliminates the need for blocks and complicated wiring that is required when using track power. You can have one train run while a second section follows right behind it while you control each one independently. Reversing loops, no problem, wye tracks, why not? If you use battery power none of the track configurations that require complex wiring or controls merit a second thought. An added benefit to battery R/C is that your model trains operate just like the real thing with their own power source located on board. The use of radio control allows you to walk along with you train instead of being stuck by a power pack. This makes it much easier to do switching or drop and pick up cars in sidings if you want to operate your railroad instead of just have your engine chase its tail. There are other added benefits such as a train with a battery power source can sit parked on a siding and its headlight will burn just a brightly as if it was rolling down the tracks. You can even wire your engine so that you can turn the headlights on and off by remote control. Most R/C systems allow you to control your sound system as well, and you can wire the system to control the whistle or horn and bell by remote control with an onboard battery the sound system can operate even if the train is not moving. Of course all this added realism and flexibility is not without its tradeoffs. The obvious drawback to battery power is that your run time is limited to the capacity of the battery that powers your train. When the battery is depleted you must either stop running while the batteries recharge or swap them out with spare charged batteries. Depending on the batteries you use, it is possible to obtain run times of three to four hours or more (this is also dependant on the size of your engine, the length of the trains, how steep the grades are, etc.).
Another consideration with going to battery power radio control is the added initial cost. You will have to spend more money to convert your engine to battery R/C and there will be the additional labor of the installation (which can be just minutes or hours depending on the RC system used and the engine that is being converted) however in the long run you will save time as your track maintenance time is reduced or even eliminated. Whether to use track power or battery power can often spur heated debates between the two camps, and I'm not going to try to argue the point that battery power is better or not. It largely depends on the size of your layout, how often you run, and how many pieces of motive power you have. However, if you think battery power might be right for you and you want to know more on how to get started read on. Batteries first Well, if we are going to give our trains an onboard power source we need to pick out what type of battery we are going to use, maybe in the future we will use hydrogen fuel cells or miniature fusion generators, but for right now we are limited to batteries. So to help you decide what type battery to use we need to learn a little bit about batteries and how they work. What is a Battery? A battery is a storage device that generates an electrical current by converting chemical energy into electrical energy. There are two classes of batteries: primary batteries, such as the common dry cell or alkaline battery, which is used once and replaced. Secondary batteries can be recharged and reused by feeding electrical current back into them when they are in a discharged state and the electrical energy is converted back into chemical energy that can be changed back to electricity again, these types of batteries are known as rechargeable batteries, storage batteries or accumulators.  A battery is a collection of one or more cells. A cell is the chemical sandwich that causes the reaction that generates the electric current. The combination of materials and their size determine the voltage and current of the cell. To make a higher voltage several cells are placed in series and the voltages of the individual cells are added together to get the total voltage.
Cells have a positive electrode, which electrons flow to, and a negative electrode that the electrons flow from. Inside the cell between these poles (electrodes) is a chemical called an electrolyte from which ions flow from and to. Electrons flow from the negative pole to our lights, motors and electronics and return to the positive pole thus making a circuit. This flow of electrons trying to reach equilibrium is the electrical current. As the process continues, the active materials become depleted and the reaction slows down until the battery is no longer able to supply electrons. At that point the battery is discharged. Battery Sizes - Lead Acid batteries come in a wide variety of sizes and are usually square or rectangular. NiCad, NiMh, Dry Cell and Alkaline come in common sizes that most of us are familiar with: AAA, AA, C, and D. NiCad and NiMh additionally come in AAAA, N, A, Sub C, and F sizes and fractional sizes of most of the letter sizes. Remember, the larger the battery in physical size the larger the amp-hour rating and the longer your trains will run on a single charge. Cell Size | Millimeters | Inches | | Name | Diameter | Length | Diameter | Length | | AAAA | 7.5 | 41.8 | 0.30 | 1.65 | | 1/3 AAA | 10.0 | 15.0 | 0.39 | 0.59 | | 2/3AAA | 10.5 | 29.0 | 0.41 | 1.14 | | AAA | 10.0 | 43.7 | 0.39 | 1.72 | | 5/4 AAA | 10.5 | 50.0 | 0.41 | 1.97 | | N | 11.5 | 28.5 | 0.45 | 1.12 | | 1/3AA | 14.0 | 16.7 | 0.55 | 0.66 | | 2/3AA | 14.0 | 29.5 | 0.55 | 1.16 | | 4/5AA | 14.5 | 43.0 | 0.57 | 1.69 | | AA | 13.8 | 49.5 | 0.54 | 1.95 | | 7/5AA | 13.8 | 64.5 | 0.54 | 2.54 | | 1/3A | 16.5 | 15.0 | 0.65 | 0.59 | | 2/3A | 16.5 | 27.8 | 0.65 | 1.09 | | 4/5A | 16.5 | 42.0 | 0.65 | 1.65 | | A | 16.5 | 48.5 | 0.65 | 1.91 | | 4/3A | 17.0 | 66.0 | 0.67 | 2.60 | | 1/2 Sub-C | 23.0 | 26.0 | 0.91 | 1.02 | | 4/5 Sub-C | 23.0 | 33.0 | 0.91 | 1.30 | | Sub-C | 23.0 | 42.0 | 0.91 | 1.65 | | 5/4 Sub-C | 22.0 | 49.0 | 0.87 | 1.93 | | 1/2 C | 25.6 | 24.0 | 1.01 | 0.94 | | C | 25.2 | 49.0 | 0.99 | 1.93 | | 1/2 D | 32.5 | 36.9 | 1.28 | 1.45 | | D | 32.3 | 58.4 | 1.27 | 2.30 | | F | 32.3 | 90.0 | 1.27 | 3.54 | Next Time: Types of Batteries - Next time we will look at some different options in batteries. There are several different kinds to pick from, which one is right for you? Top of Page
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