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Well, I built my first battery car today, and while there are a few wrinkles to iron out, I’m fairly please with the overall outcome.
Ralph began “our” transition from track power to battery by utilizing Craftsman 19.2 VDC NiCad batteries that he had hanging around (job related stuff).
He was able to get a couple of hours run time with both his Pacific and also his Annie. His wife’s USA F3’s also run for a couple of hours (batteries in both the “A” and “B” units), so I figured that these would work well enough for me, too…
I wanted to have commonality amongst the battery systems and chargers, just so that should we need to make “changes” on the fly, the basic “platform’ would be the same.
His method of mounting and charging is a little less complicated than mine, but it works for him. I simply didn’t want to have to take the top off of the battery car to charge it.
Headed over to Sears to pick up a pair of batteries and a charger, and naturally left my Craftsman Club card at home. No extra 10% off that package for me this time… Dang.
Funny part was, when checking out, the sales clerk asked me if I wished to purchase the 2 year extended warranty. I said, “Nope. Just gonna take them home and cut ‘em up…” The look in his face was worth the missed discount.
The batteries themselves have a pretty big profile, so in order to make them fir in a box car, the stem that interfaces with the charger had to be chopped off. Carefully. Very carefully…
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Anyway, I had picked up a few old USAT cars (at about $10 a copy), and they only had four screws holding the roof on, so they became the victims of my nefarious plan.
There was one wire that needed to be snipped before I could cut the tab to the capacitor (or whatever that big cylindrical thing is) that held the stem in place.
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There are six different power “leads” from inside the battery case up through the stem, so a simple power jack wasn’t going to work for me.
Had a bunch of nine pin computer type connectors that I’d used as control wiring on my old Christmas modules that I’d squirreled away upon dismantling that mess. I am hard pressed to throw way anything that even remotely appears useful. While this big old jack sticking out of the end of the car is in no way “to scale” or “prototypical”, it looked like it would do what I wanted to do. Where there were larger gauge wires (16 as opposed to 22), I simply doubled the 22 gauge wires, using up eight of the nine pins.
Punched a hole in the car, and bolted the receptacle into place.
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Took the stem “guts” and casing away from the battery itself, and made up a pigtail that goes from the charger to the receptacle on the car.
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On the output end of the car is a simple two wire lead that plugs right into the back end of my SD-45.
The battery charged up just fine, and nothing has caught fire out in the shop just yet, so I think I’ve got a reasonable handle on this particular challenge. The fire extinguisher is right by the door, and properly charged…
I may make some refinements in the installation on the next bunch of cars, but this is my basic approach…
So, now I have to figure out why my SD-45 does not respond to any commands from the TE…
I love this crap…
Ralph began “our” transition from track power to battery by utilizing Craftsman 19.2 VDC NiCad batteries that he had hanging around (job related stuff).
He was able to get a couple of hours run time with both his Pacific and also his Annie. His wife’s USA F3’s also run for a couple of hours (batteries in both the “A” and “B” units), so I figured that these would work well enough for me, too…
I wanted to have commonality amongst the battery systems and chargers, just so that should we need to make “changes” on the fly, the basic “platform’ would be the same.
His method of mounting and charging is a little less complicated than mine, but it works for him. I simply didn’t want to have to take the top off of the battery car to charge it.
Headed over to Sears to pick up a pair of batteries and a charger, and naturally left my Craftsman Club card at home. No extra 10% off that package for me this time… Dang.
Funny part was, when checking out, the sales clerk asked me if I wished to purchase the 2 year extended warranty. I said, “Nope. Just gonna take them home and cut ‘em up…” The look in his face was worth the missed discount.
The batteries themselves have a pretty big profile, so in order to make them fir in a box car, the stem that interfaces with the charger had to be chopped off. Carefully. Very carefully…
Anyway, I had picked up a few old USAT cars (at about $10 a copy), and they only had four screws holding the roof on, so they became the victims of my nefarious plan.
There was one wire that needed to be snipped before I could cut the tab to the capacitor (or whatever that big cylindrical thing is) that held the stem in place.
There are six different power “leads” from inside the battery case up through the stem, so a simple power jack wasn’t going to work for me.
Had a bunch of nine pin computer type connectors that I’d used as control wiring on my old Christmas modules that I’d squirreled away upon dismantling that mess. I am hard pressed to throw way anything that even remotely appears useful. While this big old jack sticking out of the end of the car is in no way “to scale” or “prototypical”, it looked like it would do what I wanted to do. Where there were larger gauge wires (16 as opposed to 22), I simply doubled the 22 gauge wires, using up eight of the nine pins.
Punched a hole in the car, and bolted the receptacle into place.
Took the stem “guts” and casing away from the battery itself, and made up a pigtail that goes from the charger to the receptacle on the car.
On the output end of the car is a simple two wire lead that plugs right into the back end of my SD-45.
The battery charged up just fine, and nothing has caught fire out in the shop just yet, so I think I’ve got a reasonable handle on this particular challenge. The fire extinguisher is right by the door, and properly charged…
I may make some refinements in the installation on the next bunch of cars, but this is my basic approach…
So, now I have to figure out why my SD-45 does not respond to any commands from the TE…
I love this crap…
