Does anyone know of any 009/9mm gauge locos manufactured powered by battery, as opposed to track, electricity? The smallest gauge battery loco I know of is a 12mm gauge toy train which I bought. I have not used one in 4mm scale yet as I am considering the feasibility of regauging it to 9 or 16.5mm gauge, which may be more useful to me at the moment.
Even if you could put a battery in the loco (of a following waggon/coach) how would you control it?
One possibilty that might be worth considering is rather than try to make a toy look like a scale model, is to add batteries to an 009 loco.
Many newer motors draw very little current and the majority of pager motors run on 1.5 V or 3 V. So much so that Nigel Lawton has had to go to great lengths to source equivalent motors that run on higher "standard" voltages. With re-motoring to 1.5 or 3 V, fewer cells are needed.
Finding space in an 009 loco may be difficult, but Faller manage to do it in small road vehicles. If a permanently coupled wagon is acceptable then the range of suitable batteries is much wider. Indeed another approach is a powered wagon as used in the Kato "Pocket Line" steam outline train which uses the standard Kato tram chassis under a coach body:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSUAC7qouKk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSUAC7qouKk)
There should be oodles of space for a battery such as this:
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252894/ (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252894/)
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252888/ (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252888/)
6 volts should be plenty. I'm not sure what the current draw would be but guess at 100 mA so a healthy 300 mAhr battery should last 3 hours.
Quote from: hughn on August 28, 2012, 11:00
Even if you could put a battery in the loco (of a following waggon/coach) how would you control it?
hacking a radio control toy (car, helicopter etc) might be one possibilty or for simpler "bang-bang" control there is the Faller road vehicle magnet and reed switch way perhaps?
I think you will find that there is a 9mm gauge toy version of a German high speed ICE and a UK IC125 that is battery powered. The sets cost about
My grandson has one of these radio controlled cars:
http://www.everbuying.com/product59355.html
It's tiny - three inches long (the size quoted on the link is the overeall package I think).
It has a rechargable battery inside the car that only lasts a few minutes but you recharge it from the controller also in a few minutes. The whole system runs on two AA batteries in the controller.
I've not opened it but I would think you could fit the works into an 009 loco.
If you put power on the track eg like a DCC system then I should think you could charge the battery from the track.
Frank
Yersss, but if you have power on the track, what would you want a battery-powered loco for? ???
You might not have power on all of the track - you might only have some sections powered (intentionally), you might have some non-conducting track, or you might just have some dead spots to ride over.
Just an idea.
Frank
Quote from: hughn on August 28, 2012, 19:48
Yersss, but if you have power on the track, what would you want a battery-powered loco for? ???
The bad electrics on all my layouts :laugh: The toy loco I have has a switch and only runs one way, so could only work on continuous run. However, I'm sure it could be made to run both ways. Is this it ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PETERKIN-TECHNIC-9-INTERCITY-SERIES-4-N-GAUGE-TRAIN-SET-BOX-VGC-/170899679005?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item27ca6a271d ) ?