soothsayer
Registered
I’m not trying to hijack this thread, but I discovered something interesting on my LGB Ballenberg rack locomotive today that is battery related.
I am running a shuttle back and forth from around the Christmas tree, up two inclines, and across my stone hearth. I’m using a standard 1 amp power transformer from a starter set. To get a nice scale speed, my rail voltage is around 13.5v. However, when the train hits the incline, it slows to a crawl and rail voltage drops down to between 8v-9v. I’m sure amperage is spiking (LGB recommends at least a 2 amp transformer for rack locos) so I’m not surprised. I also notice when the engine is descending the slopes that it runs significantly faster than it does on level ground. I just attributed that to gravity.
I thought I would try an experiment. I have a number of Lipo batteries for my scale RC boat collection. I picked a 4S (14.8v) 5200 mah pack since, at storage charge (44% capacity), it would give me 13.06v to the rails when the train was running. I hooked it up in place of the transformer and was a bit shocked at the difference in performance. The engine runs at almost the same speed the whole way around the circuit. Uphill, my voltage only drops from 13.08v to 12.89v. When it descends the hills, the speed remains constant and barely increases. Of course, I can’t vary the speed, but it is just shuttling back and forth and with the LGB reversing unit, it accelerates and decelerates nice and slow at each end. The amperage that this battery can put out FAR exceeds anything these motors draw. The crazy thing is, I hooked up the battery to the track with 44% charge. I ran for 35 minutes solid (with about a 10 second pause at each end) and came away with 40% capacity. On a full charge, I should be able to run continuously for hours! I’m sure it is much healthier on the locomotive motors having plenty of amperage available than barely getting by with just 1 amp from my transformer.
I am running a shuttle back and forth from around the Christmas tree, up two inclines, and across my stone hearth. I’m using a standard 1 amp power transformer from a starter set. To get a nice scale speed, my rail voltage is around 13.5v. However, when the train hits the incline, it slows to a crawl and rail voltage drops down to between 8v-9v. I’m sure amperage is spiking (LGB recommends at least a 2 amp transformer for rack locos) so I’m not surprised. I also notice when the engine is descending the slopes that it runs significantly faster than it does on level ground. I just attributed that to gravity.
I thought I would try an experiment. I have a number of Lipo batteries for my scale RC boat collection. I picked a 4S (14.8v) 5200 mah pack since, at storage charge (44% capacity), it would give me 13.06v to the rails when the train was running. I hooked it up in place of the transformer and was a bit shocked at the difference in performance. The engine runs at almost the same speed the whole way around the circuit. Uphill, my voltage only drops from 13.08v to 12.89v. When it descends the hills, the speed remains constant and barely increases. Of course, I can’t vary the speed, but it is just shuttling back and forth and with the LGB reversing unit, it accelerates and decelerates nice and slow at each end. The amperage that this battery can put out FAR exceeds anything these motors draw. The crazy thing is, I hooked up the battery to the track with 44% charge. I ran for 35 minutes solid (with about a 10 second pause at each end) and came away with 40% capacity. On a full charge, I should be able to run continuously for hours! I’m sure it is much healthier on the locomotive motors having plenty of amperage available than barely getting by with just 1 amp from my transformer.
