Battery Power – Frédéric Zamit

Porter: Li-Ion Test Run

After I finished the powerpack the next opportunity was seized to perform an extensive test run.

First the pack was connected to the charger and fully charged. To be on the safe side I placed the accu pack in a fireproof bowl and thanks to the fine weather I could move the whole setup into the garden. In case that a cell had been damaged, it would have spared me the troubles of toxic fumes in my workshop.

All went well, so I could plug the powerpack into the existing R/C circuit. The results were stupefying: almost three hours of solid mileage with 40% capacity remaining. Now I’m convinced that I can get up to two hours of operations out of the powerpack without overtaxing it. Next step will be the assembly of the DelTang transmitter.

Christmas Train At The Office

Porter: Li-Ion Powerpack

As I wrote earlier, I’m going to switch my father’s Mogul loco to battery power. However, I want to gain some experience first by modernizing my porter loco.

At the finish line the porter as well as the mogul locos will be equipped with DelTang receivers and Li-Ion powerpacks.

Garden Railway: The First Oval

Die erste Testfahrt im Garten — First test drive in the garden

Today was a very special day for me. After years of planning, after months of constructing my porter tender, after weeks of waiting for vacation – today, I finally got to lay my own rails out in my own garden and I let my own loco run a few rounds.

Porter: Conversion to Battery Power

Porter Lok zerlegt für Umbau — Porter loco disassembled for conversion

Now that the tender’s basic construction is finished, I wanted to achieve operational readiness. That required the porter loco to get converted from rail to battery power. The most important thing to keep in mind is to insulate the loco’s circuits from the rails in order to avoid “supplying” the rails with the battery’s current. Only then one is completely independent from other loco’s and can really enjoy the advantages of battery power.

New Construction Report: Porter on Battery Power

Since last September I’ve worked on a project, which I’d like to present now. It’s about a small Portor steam locomotive by LGB, which I want to switch over to battery that is accumulator power, controlled by R/C. At a later time I’d also like to adapt the looks.

This loco is supposed to make the starting point for my own garden railway, hopefully within this year. September and October were spent with some experiments to place all the necessary components within the locomotive. Alas, I had to take away too much of the lead ballast, so the loco wasn’t able to transmit its motive power to the rails.