Battery power and Remote Control (R/C) systems

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Overview:

These subjects can be very confusing and contentious, since there are many variations in how to do this.

I'm going to address this slightly differently: I'll try to break it down in a way that helps people decide what is best for them, by giving the features available, limitations, i.e. pretty much the pro's and con's.

Definition of R/C (Remote Control):

Here. I want to define R/C as a non-centralized system, where the throttle transmits directly to the locomotive (or accessory), i.e. when in use there is a 1 to 1 relationship between that throttle and the locomotive, and there is no "central intelligence" as there is in a true DCC system.

The reason is that it is important to distinguish between the above type, and a system where the throttle is wireless, but works with a central unit (for example a DCC Central Station as defined by the NMRA) which then sends information to the locomotives. (which have a lot of advantages)

Please note that RailPro has much more intelligence than the other systems, but there is still not a central intelligence as such, in fact that locomotives can communicate with each other is unique and very different.

Deadrail is "dead", as compared to it's original meaning, won't use the term

Deadrail also needs definition, and I will discuss it here and then discard the term. Originally Deadrail was meant to be DCC over the air, that the "rails were dead". It's a great idea, using a known protocol with lots of hardware (especially decoders) available. Because DCC is defined (by the NMRA) and it is a standard, It has a defined architecture. Tam Valley made some good, inexpensive products here.

In brief, one strength of DCC is that throttles all connect to a central "command station", which not only generates the DCC commands, but "knows" all the throttles, the locomotives, etc. for the entire system. You can read about this in the DCC section, but it is a required component of a DCC system.

If you send DCC commands from a throttle to a locomotive directly, and do not have a central "command station" then not only are you losing major features of DCC, but you are technically violating the DCC standard. Therefore this needed special consideration of how to implement this, normally adding the "command station" function to the throttle. Besides violating the standard, you are giving up features like "all stop", consisting database, handing locomotives and consists to other throttles, a common database all users could share. So this did lead to some different ways to handle the lack of a single "command station" for all throttles.

But to make the term Deadrail completely useless, now many people (including the "Deadrail society" itself) use Deadrail to mean ANY R/C system that does not power the rails. So the specific issues with DCC over the air are now not even considered by many using the term Deadrail. Thus the term is meaningless, in opposition to the original meaning and also superfluous: just use "R/C" for what you are doing.

Why is battery power lumped in with Remote Control here?

Over the years, there have been many abortive attempts to combine R/C with track power. It really makes little sense for 90% of the applications. While to the casual observer this could have many advantages, it really doesn't not make a lot of sense. Since the idea of using R/C with track power comes up on the forums on a regular basis I'm going to list the reasons "given" that seems to make it attractive to some, and why these reasons usually do not make sense. Remember I said 90% of the time, so there are indeed cases where track power combined with R/C make sense.

Reasons given to use R/C (Remote Control) with track power:

1. No space for batteries in the loco. Smaller scales like HO make a lot of sense, very few Large Scale locos cannot fit batteries.
2. I hate spending extra money on batteries and chargers. (me too ha ha)
3. I hate charging batteries
4. I can recharge my locos from the track, so the batteries are always topped off, never need separate recharging, or I can use smaller batteries. (never works well.)

The only reasons for R/C with track power is really you cannot fit or don't want batteries. There are so many advantages to track power with DCC it's silly. DCC is so prevalent, there are so many options, and the economy of not using wireless to the trains is just inarguable.

The bottom line is if you can provide good track power, the wireless to your trains is just an extra complication. (again smaller scales battery fitment is a good rationalization)

There are silly arguments about reversing loops, etc. and it is so easy to use track power that

Charging batteries from the track: I will explain why this is a silly idea, just so I don't have to retype this every time someone comes up with this great idea.

This is the one that comes up over and over. Charging on board batteries from the track could work. Often the idea is to just power most of the track, and you have no reverse loop issues, and don't have to wire/power switches, and it really seems at first glance this could be really cool.

Here's the basic issue: Most people want to go to battery to save money or time cleaning track. But the cost issue is silly, rail clamps or soldering jumpers will make track power solid. I

The issue is that in order to charge batteries "on board", you need a REALLY smart charger, one that has not been invented yet!. Your power to the charger will be interrupted often, so the charger will have to restart quickly to resume the charge, and the feature that has not been invented yet, it must resume the charging cycle from where it left off. If you learn about smart chargers, it takes some time for the charger to determine the current state of a battery pack BEFORE it can start charging. The problem with restarting a charger over and over is that you would almost continuously be resetting it and putting it through the "determine state of charge" cycle. Even more importantly, this procedure involves putting the battery NO MATTER WHAT STATE OF CHARGE to a short charging current, and then the battery voltage is read back.

Hopefully you see that the battery would be subject to a number of short charging cycles even if fully charged. For lithium batteries, this will at least cause damage to the battery, and worst case a fire.

The bottom line is this charger has not (and probably won't be) invented to actually achieve any reasonable charging in this case. It's just not worth the cost and effort, and again, if you have track power reliable enough for this, DCC will be less costly and more performance.

So the bottom line is forget trying to charge batteries from track power. (There are good applications for this though, like museums that have displays, and can "park" a train or automobile to recharge them on the layout, of course they are inactive and you do not interrupt the charging.

OK, now we are assuming wireless R/C, & battery power

(need to do by feature breakdown)

one  controller - many locos or one to one ok

list of features

lack of central intelligence

Battery power combined with remote control (R/C) can be the ideal setup for many users. Note: Battery powered DCC will be in the DCC section, since it is merely a way to put the DCC signal that is traditionally on the rails, to over the air, whether track powered or battery powered. There are unique aspects to this implementation of DCC, since the standard is defined, and works as, an integrated system over all locomotives.

Battery vs. track power is an endless debate between users. There are advantages, but typically it is NOT cost. Straight DC track power is cheapest. If you need remote control, i.e. several locos on the same track, then track powered remote control systems are still cheaper (yes even accounting for aluminum rail vs other rail) once you get over about 3 or 4 locos.

The main reason you find that people are running batteries is that they either cannot maintain power to the track, or they have been told that battery is cheaper/better (or they only have a few locos).

There is great a reason for battery power, if you don't have a layout, or bringing your locos to somewhere that there is no track power.

A few last comments on track vs. battery power myths:

I already mentioned the "cheaper" issue. True, you can buy a really cheap control that runs a train with virtually no more control than a cheap toy, but with sound even that goes out the window. You have to compare apples to apples. I could pull a train with a string too. Make sure you are comparing what you get in both methods.

On the "cannot maintain track power", there are examples of where there's legitimate reasons for this being an issue, there are people who live in the desert where dirt and dust blows all the time. I cannot think of many other venues. Sorry TOC, rain does not bother track power either, and I don't think running trains where the tracks are submerged is a large user base.

If cost is really an issue, aluminum track can make things cheaper, and people do run track power on aluminum, but it takes more maintenance. Some environments do oxidize brass rail quickly, and in those environments and where you don't want to do oxidation removal, and/orif you cannot afford stainless rail, then maybe battery power is better for you. (remember that twigs, rocks, etc. will stop any loco, track powered or not).

The lesson here is don't just believe things you are told without questioning. Make the right choice for yourself.

Let's get the battery chemistry question out of the way too:

 Why this first? Mostly because it is an easier decision, and also it's unfortunately a question people address way too late in the process. So rather than fight it, I will address it.

Which type of batteries?

The first thing people agonize over is the chemistry (type) of batteries to use. I suggest you read up on the types of batteries from an unbiased source, here's a good link: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/. Mind you this is a pretty good source, but it's NOT perfect.

I will give you a good piece of advice: As you talk to people about batteries, AVOID anyone who says "this type is the best, and all others are bad". A person biased that way will not help you make the RIGHT decision for yourself. All the major battery types have advantages and disadvantages.

OK, the answer first: the batteries I would consider for most installations would be LiIon (lithium ion), normally cylindrical cells in a pack. I would not recommend lithium polymer at first, they are in a flexible pouch, and they are too easily physically damaged. If you can protect the cells from physical damage, use them if you have an installation that benefits from their form factor. In most cases, you want to protect the pack, there is vibration, and trains HAVE been dropped before!

What types are there?:

SLA (sealed lead acid, or "gel cells"):

Bulky, heavy, and they sulphate if let sit a long time. Basically they take too much space for most installations. They are easy to charge, and are more like a car battery. They don't fast charge really well, and they can take a bit of an overcharge (float charge). Treated well, they last for a while, but often in our hobby trains can sit for 6 months without a charge.

Nickle Cadmium (nicad)

Long time favorite, if you don't use Li Ion, use these, quality Nicads can last many years if charged and used properly. They can have reasonable energy density, high current, and are easy to charge, and not real finicky. They come in many sizes and shapes, mostly cylindrical. There is a myth about "memory", but this "symptom" is from poor charging. With today's smart chargers, "memory" is a thing of the past. Memory is really an old wives tale. If you still believe, Google it, or drop me an email and I'll explain.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMiH)

This chemistry has approximately double the energy density of Nicads. They can be less "sturdy" if poorly charged. My belief is that this is because a charger has to be a bit "smarter" to to sense a charge complete situation. They have a little higher self-discharge than I like. There are some newer types, notably the Eneloop ones, that have very low self discharge. Make sure you have the right charger for them. Given the right charger and if you get the new technology, these really should be the successor to nicads.

Lithium Ion / Lithium Polymer / other Lithium varients

Quite a breakthrough in battery technology, and about every modern electronic gadget is using them or Lithium Polymer. Higher energy density, lighter, and pretty well standardized close to a "4/3 A" in size. The 18650 cells are what most packs are made from. There's less variety available to the hobbyist, and these batteries are more expensive than the others.

Lithium Polymer (LiPo) is basically the same as Li Ion, but normally in a flexible pack. They are much more susceptible to damage, and I don't recommend them for most people.

There are also more advanced Lithium derivatives, which are great, but you need to be sure you have the right charger, for that EXACT chemistry.

Buy QUALITY stuff, this is not the technology to buy cheap junk. Get pre-made packs with the "PCB" (printed circuit board) in them, that senses damaged cells, limits over discharge, etc.

Note that you have to charge these correctly, and make sure you discard damaged batteries. Yes, significant overcharge or charging damaged batteries can catch fire. If you are really paranoid and want to rail on about the dangers of these batteries, then I submit you also discard your cell phone, your laptop computer, your cordless toothbrush, and all the other dozens of Li Ion-powered devices in your house.

Charging:

Boy this is another place that there are many "experts", many of whom really don't know squat. Basically you need a "smart" charger, and unfortunately the "smarter" it is, often the more complex it is to operate.

If you have a battery pack made by a company, the easiest way is to get a smart charger that is preset to the number of cells, the chemistry, and the amp-hour capacity of your specific pack. Of course unless all your battery packs are the same, this means more chargers. (battery power is cheaper and simpler right?)

Universal chargers can often lead to damage, since you usually have to set the above parameters for them to charge safely. Make a mistake and you can damage the battery, and overcharging some batteries will result in fire. So if you feel that you won't be able to navigate the menus on a universal charger or could easily mess up the settings for different packs, go back to the "charger per pack" idea or make all your packs the same voltage and capacity.

As an aside, I have one that has worked for years, and is no longer available the Maha C777 Plus II. There were 3 models, the C777, the C777 Plus, and the one I use, the C777 Plus II. I use it for many different battery packs, and it has worked well for years. It automatically senses the number of cells, a nice feature not found a lot currently.

Why am I mentioning the Maha here? Because I need to archive an undocumented feature. This charger has a discharge button and pressing it will discharge the battery, and indicate the time and amp-hours of capacity it measured, wait 15 minutes and then do a full charge. When in this mode, called the conditioning mode, the word "DISCHARGE" blinks on the display. If you enter this mode and then press and hold the discharge button, "DISCHARGE" stops blinking, and now it will stop at the end of the discharge cycle so you can record the value. This is called the "ANALYZE" mode, and was not in all the manuals. This way you can set it and leave it, come back later and see what the true capacity of your pack is. Boy I do miss this charger, mine are over 10 years old, one is 30 years old.

Some examples of chargers:

TOC (Dave Goodson) uses this: Model:F12.0-24.0-008-D by RCP, a.k.a. Rich China Power company, a.k.a. Shenzhen Rich China Power Electronics Technology Co. LTD, http://www.fhy-power.com/EN/Channels/Home/index.asp It works on Nicad and NiMih. It auto detects number of cells, fixed charge current of 800 ma, terminates charge on "End charge by detect negative delta V"

The Tenergy line of chargers are good, but some people get confused with the menus, since they are universal chargers. I think the menu is straightforward, but be honest with yourself and don't buy one if you hate menus and getting to the details of setting it up, otherwise the destroyed batteries will cost more than the "fixed" chargers.

Beware! Not everyone that acts like an expert is an expert!

Here's a thread that has a number of "the experts" on it about something as simple as charging in series or parallel, including 3 people who sell battery systems and installations, and several actual experts from the forum. Notice the wildly conflicting statements. Hint: of the 3 businesses, only the one in Australia really understands.

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/27128/battery-won-t-fit?page=1

The thread starts off ok, the issue is that Steve F. was sold a battery that did not fit the loco he specified.

Starts going off the rails when Steve is not clear on how series and paralleled batteries have voltage and current calculated. That's OK, Steve is asking questions.

I bring up the issue of paralleling battery packs, and of course now the dealer participating posts July 17, 2017 8:02 PM EDT and he has no clue at all, proffering that the super duper packs he has work fine in parallel and once one pack fills up the other starts (like they have brains), and misses the point of too high charging current, if it is right for 2 in parallel, most likely it is wrong for one.

The dealer AGAIN comes back, lauding his supplier and the internal pack protection, clearly did not read or understand the problem is the impossibility of an even distribution of current between 2 paralleled packs July 18, 2017 11:14 PM EDT

Now, a battery supplier gets parallel and series confused (a fundamental mistake) July 20, 2017 1:28 AM EDT , in fact he just keeps going on.. this person is now out of business, for good reason.

So the point is, there are "experts" and there are real experts. Being the distributor of battery packs, or even the manufacturer is no guarantee you know what you are talking about.

OK Greg, I have been very patient: what R/C system should I buy?

This is the biggest area of debate, a huge source of controversy and opinions. Basically, the systems available range from inexpensive to complex. (note I did not say inexpensive to expensive, or simple to complex, this is because all of this is involved, but normally simple and inexpensive go hand in hand, as well as expensive/complex/full featured are usually all together.

The typical way this question is attacked, is each proponent of a system (usually the manufacturer) beats his chest about the positives of their system and also spends equal time putting down the competition.

As in most arguments, you need the pros AND the cons of each system.

But before you do this, there is something you need to do that is most fundamental, you have to decide what is important to you, i.e. your priorities. If you don't do this, you will never make the right decision except by random chance.

So: what you want from your system. For years, it was enough to just go forwards and reverse and have speed control. Over the years, lighting control has been added, and now sound is mandatory for almost everyone. Most people don't use smoke due to fact that current draw from the smoke unit is almost as much as the motor. (too bad!)

So at this point, let's assume battery power is best for you, so now you need to determine a few things:

• will you be using smoke? (most battery power guys do not because of the extra power draw)
• will you be using sound? (90% of modern day users want sound)
• what are the grades on your layout?
• how long will the trains be? (also do you have ball bearings on your rolling stock?)
• how much space will you have in the loco?
• do you mind having a trailing car for the battery?

Categories:

This is going to be tough, since many of these systems developed their features slightly differently. I'm going make arbitrary categories of Minimal/Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. I may change these over time, and I'm not making the categories "competition" between manufacturers.

• Minimal/Basic: basically just speed and direction, and maybe headlights that follow direction
• Intermediate: This is where most R/C systems fall in my opinion, since full DCC-like or ABOVE features is where I draw the line of comparision.
• Advanced: This is where you basically get almost everything (or more) than a full blown DCC system. I use DCC as a comparison since it is a standard for control internationally.

Note: I'm going to use a number of products from G Scale Graphics as examples, since he makes some products not available elsewhere, and quality and customer satisfaction is high:   https://www.gscalegraphics.net/#/ 

Minimal/basic control systems:

This is stuff with a very basic control system, sometimes even without a remote.

Critter Control:

 Many people would not call this exactly remote control, but it has some "smarts".

A small board that generates PWM output to a motor. As stripped down as it gets, no on/off, no direction switch, just a speed control about $40. This is really not even remote control, but I wanted to show the ends of the spectrum.

Enhanced Critter Control:

There is an enhanced critter control which has direction and gentle speed up and slow down. This has a speed control, and a button can start and stop. Adding a reed switch will add back and forth "trolley" operation and to do station stops. Quite a lot of capability.

Medium capability systems:

Railboss 4

Now we are entering the area most people would think of as R/C, with speed, direction, directional lighting and outputs to trigger sounds or other things:

This is a close up picture, the remote is nice and small, like a car remote. 5 and 10 amp versions available (use the 10 amp one when double heading). Nice compact remote, runs on 2.4GHz. From $200 to $250, and many happy customers.

There is also a Plus version with many of the automated features built in.

need more manufacturers here, probably Tony's stuff

Maximum capability systems:

 Need to define the level of capability, and the idea of a "system...

Talk about pros and cons of proprietary hardware

Where can interchangability be?

One system that works well and has professional installation available is Remote Control Systems. http://www.rcs-rc.com They have a line of systems that are easy to use, simple throttles, and they have excellent support. The two US distributors both do excellent custom installations.

Another system is the Aristo Train Engineer system (TE). Now there can be some confusion here, since there are different models and impmenetations. There is an "on board" receiver that plugs into the Aristo locos. This wireless system uses 75 MHz and constant power to the track. I would not recommend this system as there seems to be a number of range issues, and the power capability is limited. BUT many users have used this system. It could be set up to work from battery, but you would have to do a bit of surgery, since the receiver only has pins to plug in to the loco.

The unit that is very popular is the "Trackside TE". The intended use is for the 27 MHz receiver to be attached to the track, and power one loco from there. Enterprising souls have removed the receiver from the box, and you can get it into a large loco or boxcar, and power it from batteries.

This system works well, and has a lot of following. It is relatively inexpensive. Both systems are "one way", in that there is closed loop system that ensures commands are received. If you get out of range, your first indication will be that you cannot control your loco.

DIY / Arduino systems

There is a lot of experimentation with Bluetooth receivers/decoders, since it's easy to use your $1,000 phone as a transmitter. (you save money because you already have a phone).

The decoders can be cheap, a bluetooth receiver and a motor driver. Things like momentum can be done in the phone.

Ring Engineering Rail Pro

http://ringengineering.com/index.html

http://youtu.be/BIEexmNhGrE

still investigating, but does not appear to be capable of G scale voltages or currents.

Has communication from color LCD directly to module in loco. Nice user interface, sound system is OK, not up to DCC standards, not load dependent, etc.

DCC over the air:

 Talk about the differences between making a true DCC system wireless, and using R/C to just send DCC commands over the air.

AirWire

This system has a 900 MHz throttle, and a decoder/receiver in the loco. The receiver has a goofy way of handling the higher voltages required by most G scale locos, you have to "split" the battery packs, and send the lower voltage to the receiver, and the higher voltage to the output stage that runs the motors. The system work very well, and allows the addition of virtually any standard DCC sound decoder. This gives a much greater range in sound systems you can operate. Recently QSI Solutions made an interface on it's G scale DCC decoder that allows the addition of an $80 receiver to the decoder, so you have a wireless QSI system. This system only needs a single voltage as input. A nice addition to the possibilities for an AirWire system.

AirWire Convrtr

DCC over the air:

some mention about how DCC like it is

True wireless DCC systems:

Tam valley

Reference making an off the shelf DCC system wireless...

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