Thanks for the response KB,truly appreciated. I am technology deficient and after more research I thought that your description of the system was on point. I will now have to decide if I want to tackle a hardwire of the loco. At least it already has a speaker installed. I really wish that all of these manufacturers would follow the NMRA color code standards with the wiring, would make modifications much easier. Thank you again for taking the time to look into this issue.

Have a Bachmann sound ready DCC equipped 50 ton two truck Climax that I am trying to equip with the ring system. When I access the the 21 pin board on the Loco nothing seems to happen. When I placed the loco on the track the lites came on an the loco starts running on it's own. Is there a compatability issue?. I even tried using a 21 pin to a 9 pin adapter and plugged it into a LM3-S and it did the same thing. Not sure if this will not work and will have to hard wire the Loco. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The loco is a Bachmann item#80601 if that helps.

right now the frontrunner are the panasonic eneloop batteries, and now there are actually 4 "grades" of them to make it more confusing.

They stand out from other NiMH batteries by having a significantly lower level of self discharge

be sure you investigate all 4 flavors (you might only find 3, but there are 4) if you are really picky...

be sure to note the mah capacity

I understand the batteries in the HC are two AAA? that would be about 1.2v x 2 in normal state, or 2.4v

an individual li-ion rechargeable is about 3.6 volts... as stated, a completely different charging circuit, and voltage, etc.

Also I believe the batteries are Nickel Metal Hydride, not Nickel Cadmium... (but voltages are same)

No. The charging circuit is designed for NiMh batteries. It would not properly charge LiIon and may cause other problems when charging.