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Simple "dead reail" conversion

A dead rail installation, where the battery is located in a wagon.

A first gen. LocoFi board is used here.

There is a small contact between the wagon and locomotive, it also functions as a power switch in the same time. The contacts can of course be painted black to not be so visible as they are now in white.

More than one locomotive or wagon can of course have the same type of contacts, so different trainsets can be composed. It's also possible to link together more locomotives if they have contacts in the front too. There is for sure possible to hide the contacts on the underside and mask with painting, just the imagination limits.

The small board on the side of the locomotive is a voltage step up module, to get the 7.2V battery to about 10-11V.

Excuse the "Z" on the box, it was just there without thinking when taking the photo. It have nothing to do with certain events in the world, I promise….

Charging the battery in the wagon with a short extender cable between the charger and battery.

This cables can be found cheep on Ebay too.

4 comments

4 Comments

rick.george0256

Jan 03, 2023

I'm very interested in your installation. Our HO layout is under construction and no wiring has been installed. Going "dead rail" would save an enormous amount of time & expense. Would you be able to share the manufacturers and models of the the battery and the voltage step up board? I have been searching Google without any luck.

Thank you!

Admin

Jan 03, 2023

Replying to

Going "dead rail" would save an enormous amount of time & expense.

Yes. Absolutely. We call it "save your head". Not only from bumping it when going under the tables but keeps your sanity too.

Would you be able to share the manufacturers and models of the the battery and the voltage step up board?

There's a huge variety out there. In fact, that is what makes it almost impossible to decide on what to choose for batteries. Most use the battery chemistry of LiPo as it's older and more well known technology. However, there's other Li based chemistries that are getting attention.

We do not recommend any particular brand. However, a couple of brands we found in our own testing that are good are Genstattu (https://genstattu.com/) and Turnigy. I'm sure there are many others that are good or better quality. There's just too many out there.

Some criteria to look for in the battery is voltage, current discharge rate, capacity and the size such that it fits. Now, if you can estimate the available space under the hood, you can make or get made a corresponding 3-D printed structure that will hold everything (module, battery, speaker, possibly LED holders, etc.) in place.

Some other things to look out for may be where to install switches, etc. to turn the battery on/off and plugs for recharging it or a way to take it out to recharge.

We have customers who have shared the path they chose for their "deadrail" layout as outlined below.

Another related post from @Dandelion that you might find useful: https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/forum/battery-deadrail/on-board-lipo-charging

@Ken Myers has done extensive research in terms of the type of batteries and how long they last, etc. We highly recommend you check out his website https://theampeer.org/HO/. It is very elaborate but worth it. Check out his latest video that totally relates to what you are asking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHLcjchnlyw&ab_channel=ElectricFlyersOnlyofsoutheasternMichigan

There's 12 other videos (listed in order as separate parts denoting their chronological order) that are definitely worth checking out.

@Rick Garthe is one of our oldest customers who started his layout from scratch combining LocoFi™ with deadrail. His progress on his massive layout can be tracked on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/richard.garthe.9

We have compiled a list of relevant videos from his Facebook page under the section 'Customer Testimonials' of our Videos (https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/videos) page.

There's many other customer deadrail installs that can be found as well on the same page.

Although there's some information scattered throughout our forum (https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/forum) related to deadrail, there's a dedicated subcategory "Battery / Deadrail" that caters to it specifically.

Hope that helps!