RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion
Go Deadrail with RailPro
melarson:
About a month before the NTS in Portland I purchased a battery and BPS from Neil Stanton/S-Cab with the intention of installing it in my Big Boy sometime after the show. Last week I finally got off my keester, took the battery out and ran it through the initial testing process, charged it, and hooked it up to an LM-2S on the bench.
While not installed in an engine, I think this shows quite nicely how easy it is to power a RailPro module with one of these battery packs. The video shows the system devoid of any connections to an external power supply. The loose gray wires on the right are the BPS input. In an install they would be connected to the rail leads. This allows the battery to be recharged by simply setting the engine on a piece of powered track. The pushbutton switch on the right shuts the battery system down so there is no drain on the battery when not in use. There is a reed switch on the reverse side of the BPS board that turns the system on using the supplied magnetic wand (it's a pencil with a magnet attached where the eraser normally is). Alternately, the system will turn on automatically when you place the engine on powered track.
Next step is of course to get it installed in the engine. That may take another month or two but when done I will post another video.
--Michael
William Brillinger:
very cool, but wow, that's a lot of stuff to try and fit into an HO shell!
melarson:
Agreed, Bill. I know this is a few technological steps away from being practical for space-limited HO engines. But packing it into the big, empty 14-wheel tender of a brass Big Boy appears more than doable, especially since the module and the speaker are both in the boiler. And since I run passenger trains almost exclusively, every one with a head end car right behind the power, I'm looking forward to a few more deadrail conversions in the next couple of years.
I've often contemplated what it would take to produce "deadrail chassis" replacements for popular HO diesels. Something along the lines of a very low-mounted motor and linkage like the Overland drives have might free up enough space to make this practical. Self powered units like the Stanton drive would be best in terms of gained space, but the trade off is tractive effort, I think. Plus, right now they only come in 4-wheel configs. In 2011 at the NTS in Sacramento, when I asked NWSL about plans for a 6-wheel version, they said they were looking into it, but sadly, to date they still have none.
But, time and technology march on, and I am supremely optimistic about the future of deadrail, and think RailPro is particularly well-suited to achieving that end.
--Michael
KPack:
Thanks for the demo. Railpro would certainly be a great way to go if you were to go deadrail. Like Bill said, that is a ton of stuff to fit inside a shell, which is why I haven't jumped on deadrail yet. I would not be able to fit all that even in something like a C44-9W. It will certainly work in your tender though.
I'm hoping that batteries and the charging circuit become smaller and more manageable. Once that happens then deadrail will look much more appealing to me!
As a side note, looking at all the components there the Railpro module is the smallest by far. That's interesting considering that some detractors blasted the Railpro module for being so large. The second generation module is a great size. Lots of power and capability packed into that tight box.
-Kevin
nodcc4me:
--- Quote from: KPack on December 21, 2015, 11:15:23 PM ---
As a side note, looking at all the components there the Railpro module is the smallest by far. That's interesting considering that some detractors blasted the Railpro module for being so large. The second generation module is a great size. Lots of power and capability packed into that tight box.
-Kevin
--- End quote ---
Very true Kevin. I believe there are plans for an N scale module. Imagine the size of that.
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