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Need some help with first battery conversion [SOLVED]

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timmyd

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hello,

I've decided to dive in a try my hand at my first battery conversion. I will be installing the decoder, batteries etc into an LGB 20232 stubby locomotive and tender. I will be using the Blunami 4408 decoder, HJE 14.8v 3350 Mah Lithuim-ion battery and HJE 14.8v Lithuim-ion battery charger . I have a charger plug and toggle switch harness to plug the charger into and toggle the loco on and off. I've attached an image of all the items.

I will NOT be running any track power for the locomotive however, I've removed the tender pickup brushes and am getting ready to remove the loco pickup shoes. I am not sure which wires go to the pickup brushes on the loco. Does anyone have any guidance, picture and or videos demonstrating on how to do a battery conversion on this locomotive or any LGB Mogul?

Thanks!! :)

Image
 
#2 ·
The motor block has 4 wires, 2 for the motor (outer wires) and 2 for track power (inner wires). This is standard for most LGB engines. The ones that are opposite of this are the chloe, olmana, diesel slug that has no couplers style locos and these have the small wheels and no tires (commonly called frr locos).
 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
piercedan1000 said:
The motor block has 4 wires, 2 for the motor (outer wires) and 2 for track power (inner wires). This is standard for most LGB engines. The ones that are opposite of this are the chloe, olmana, diesel slug that has no couplers style locos and these have the small wheels and no tires (commonly called frr locos).
Click to expand...
piercedan1000 said:
The motor block has 4 wires, 2 for the motor (outer wires) and 2 for track power (inner wires). This is standard for most LGB engines. The ones that are opposite of this are the chloe, olmana, diesel slug that has no couplers style locos and these have the small wheels and no tires (commonly called frr locos).
Click to expand...
Ok...thanks.

I've removed the sound existing sound card in the tender. I've removed the pickup brushes in the tender as well. I will be removing the pickup shoes and connections to the pickup brushes in the locomotive.

My objective is to run the locomotive off of battery power, not DCC or DC track power. There will be no track power to the rails for this setup.

Has anyone here had an experience with installing the Blunami 4408 into an LGB stubby locomotive or mogul?

Do I need to replace the circuit board under the boiler of the LGB 20232 and replace it with the Blunami? My plan all along was to place the Blunami decoder into the tender and power it all with the existing cable connector from the LGB loco to the tender.

I am at a loss here. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
#7 ·
timmyd said:
Do I need to replace the circuit board under the boiler of the LGB 20232 and replace it with the Blunami?
Click to expand...
Tikmy, I suspect that circuit board is for lights and smoke, etc. Trace the wires and figure out what it is connected to.

piercedan1000 said:
You can use the 5 wire connector, 2 wires for motor, 1 common power to smoke and lights, other 2 wires, 1 for lights, other for smoke unit.
Click to expand...
Once you have disconnected the track pickups on the engine, you don't need to do anything else to the motor block end. The connector has wires to the motor, so you can just wire your blunami motor output to those 2 pins.
Make a note first of which wire (color) goes to which pin.
 
#8 ·
So the thrust of my question before your post Pete, is Timmy able to "trace"? Did you mean mechanical guessing or electrical tracing?

My point is there are 2 different instruction sets:

One way is: find the green wire, and unhook it from pin 3 on the mother board and label it "motor plus" and so on.

The other way (if you are more familiar with tracing an electrical circuit): find the motor wires and hook plus and minus up to the decoder.

There's a world of difference in the level of help and instructions needed.

Greg
 
#9 ·
Note that the original 2-4-0 LGB engines/tender combinations had the rear sockets on the tender tied to track power. 2 pins of the 5 pin connector is track power. I have several of these engines and use this feature to give track power pickup in the tender to make the engine run better, and it does!!
 
#10 ·
Yeabbut... he's going for battery.. and however he arranges the components, he's going to need more than 2 wires between the tender and loco in my estimation.

I would guess it will be a challenge to get all the parts in the loco in the first place (also the picture should show a speaker I would think)

This might require a custom "shaped" battery pack to get all the stuff in.

Greg
 
#11 ·
If all the electronics is in the tender then the 5 pin cable will work. Assuming just motor (2 wires) and a common wire for power (lights, smoke unit) plus 2 wires one for front light, one for either a cabin light or smoke. Of course cabin and front light can share a wire and have one wire for smoke unit, but most battery users do not like the smoke unit power drain. Most of the loco space is consumed by the weight in this loco and why the tender is a better place for everything. A large scale Zimo dcc decoder just barely fits on top of the weight in the loco and I used the one that had me solder wires to the board. Connectors on a board did not fit.
 
#13 ·
The coal tender is large enough to hold a speaker, batteries and board. Battery size used would determine speaker size and I believe all coal LGB 2-4-0 tenders had a speaker type grill on the bottom of the tender. It is the oil version that has a smaller round tender top, coal tenders are larger/have more available space.
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
The battery conversion is completed! I placed the battery and Blunami decoder in the tender along with the speaker. It was much easier than I anticipated. I am ready now to install the Blunami decoder in a few more of my locomotives in preperation for moving my railroad outside! Thanks for all the help, insites and suggestions.
 
#15 ·
Jumping on this recent thread - I’ve picked up a Blunami 4408 to play around with. I’m also considering going battery power given the freedom the Blunami brings. - I can design / build my railroad without concern for rail continuity. I live in New Hampshire with some pretty rough weather, so having to clean rails for track power is not attractive to me. - I can use whatever track holds up to weather, even if it’s cheap. So aluminum becomes an option - just have to account for CTE. - you don’t need a current minder on the Blunami if you use batteries. - I can save a lot of cost / issues in wiring a large layout. No current feeds required. Looking at some of the thoughts on the site around battery power, I was considering the DeWalt car idea. Not sure yet. I’d prefer my locos to have batteries in the shell so they can run independently, but that clearly isn’t going to work for the smaller locos - so will likely have to have a mix. Has anyone used a short section of isolated track (siding) as a charger track? A siding seems like a great way to charge a battery pack. Obviously then would have to keep pickups - wheels clean for charging, so may not be as attractive as just plugging in. Wondering if anyone has experience with this sort of set up?
 
#16 ·
TrentS said:
Has anyone used a short section of isolated track (siding) as a charger track?
Click to expand...
I thought of that when I did my first conversion 20+ years ago (Aristo Pacific tender with the trackside receiver in it! NiMH batteries in the loco, and wheel pickups supplied by Aristo.) But I decided it wasn't worth the effort - don't forget that you'd be leaving the charger track on, or you'd have to turn it on when the loco arrives, so it's just as much work to plug in the charging cord. IMHO YMMV.

As far as batteries are concerned, I recently found some smaller Li ones, 16340s. That's a regular 18650 on the right.

Image


The circuit board is a Battery Management System board, to prevent the batteries from over/under charging, etc. [Most Li packs have one inside - I just buy them and use them in custom rigs like this.] I anticipate that i will get thses 4 batteries in some pretty small places.
 
#18 ·
Good points Pete. I know the Blunamis aren’t cheap, but no DCC boards are. I can get the 4408 for ca. $190ea. Batteries aren’t too expensive, and as you point out, you can build your own pack.

So looking at those 16340 5800mAh batteries, 4 of those in series would give you ~14v and 5.8Ah, which could run a 2amp continuous draw for ca. 2 1/2 to 3 hours. That’s pretty decent! Those seem to be twice the density of most that I have seen at 2800mAh. I’ll have to look on Amazon! Many I have seen have a built in charging circuit that uses USB C, but that seems mostly useless in our case.

Thanks for the ideas!

Pete Thornton said:
I thought of that when I did my first conversion 20+ years ago (Aristo Pacific tender with the trackside receiver in it! NiMH batteries in the loco, and wheel pickups supplied by Aristo.) But I decided it wasn't worth the effort - don't forget that you'd be leaving the charger track on, or you'd have to turn it on when the loco arrives, so it's just as much work to plug in the charging cord. IMHO YMMV.

As far as batteries are concerned, I recently found some smaller Li ones, 16340s. That's a regular 18650 on the right.

View attachment 67448

The circuit board is a Battery Management System board, to prevent the batteries from over/under charging, etc. [Most Li packs have one inside - I just buy them and use them in custom rigs like this.] I anticipate that i will get thses 4 batteries in some pretty small places.
Click to expand...
.
 
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TrentS
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