Hello forum members! My name is Rob and I'll be starting my RailPro adventure this weekend, BUT I will not be doing standard scale model railroading with it. As founder and member of ArkLUG (Arkansas LEGO Users Group) [www.arklug.org], I will be attempting to build LEGO locomotives and install Railpro to run solely on battery power. I did not see a lot of information about doing this online so I reached out to Ring Engineering via email. I thought I would share some of the questions I had along with the answers I received in case others were interested in going down the same road I am on. BTW, I realize that some of my questions may be covered in the FAQ on their site.
Q. What is the maximum amperage rating of the LM2S?
A. The max stall current of a LM-2 is 2.0 amps. The continuous running current should be less than 1.0 amp. The LM-2 motor output is short circuit, overload, and module over temperature protected. So if you connect a motor that is too big for it to drive it will turn off and report one of the above faults.
Q. Will the LM2S work satisfactorily on 9v (6xAAA batteries)? 11.1 LiPo?
A. 9 volts should work ok however the LM-2 reports a low voltage warning below 10 volts. The low voltage warning is a warning only and does not affect operation otherwise. The maximum voltage is 18 volts.
Q. Will this system ever have steam locomotives/sounds? If so, will it be just an update or require new hardware?
A. RailPro has steam sounds now. You need to load the steam sounds to the module. We currently have a heavy and a light steam sound file. We also have water fill, shoveling coal, boiler blowdown. there is several steam era whistles and bells to choose from too. Also, you can use our RailPro Assistant program and load your own custom sound files too. Basically any .WAV file can be loaded and a button setup to pay that sound. There is a one time $19.99 extra fee to enable the feature to load your own custom sounds.
Q. Will users have the ability to use their own locomotive pictures on the HC2 screen?
A. You can use our RailPro Assistant program and load your own pictures now. More info on RailPro Assistant program below.
http://ringengineering.com/RailProSoftware.htmRailPro Assistant user manual
http://ringengineering.com/RailPro/Documents/RailProAssistantUsersManual.pdfQ. In case your HO scale product can’t meet the demand of motor load, when will your presumably upcoming O gauge version be available?
A. We plan to make modules capable of running G gauge. So they will have a lot more power.
Q. Can you link two LM-2S to the same motor for power sharing?
A. You can not connect more then one LM-2 to a motor.
Q. Can you link one LM-2S to multiple controllers to be controlled simultaneously?
A. You can have any number of Handheld controllers that can select the LM-2 to control it. However, the system will guarantee that only one user (handheld controller) controls the LM-2 at a time. If one user is running a loco with a LM-2 and a second user touches the picture of the loco to take control of the loco the first user looses control and gets a 'control taken away' message. If the first user wants to take control of the loco he simply touches the loco picture and the second user looses control and gets a 'control taken away' message.
