Since the posting of Ken Myers 6th video on Deadrail Consisting has expanded it is time to start a new subject dedicated to Parallel Consist Wiring.
I have commented on Ken's attempt and my personal experience deadrailing using LocoFi in his posting which you can read we need to take this to another level.
This posting centers around why can't you have a single trailing battery car feeding power to multiple locomotives. Each locomotive could have two 22 AWG multi strand solid copper wires, red and black running from each end of the locomotive to the other and power feed wires coming from the battery car. Each locomotive's LocoFi system would tap into the power source wires running the length of the locomotive. Female receptacles could be camouflage in the body of the battery car and locomotives or in a small tool box on a walkway. The battery car would also have a batter charging receptacle mounted on it.
The Female receptacles between the battery car and the locomotives would be collected via a 2 wire cord with male plugs on each end, similar to real locomotives. Micro Mark micro mini connectors part # 86559 may work.
With this arrangement locomotives would not have to be facing in the same direction or only one locomotive could be used.
Since this is a concert I ask for comment and suggestions.
Remember if you are a true deadrailer you don't have track power. You may want to install a magnetic reed switch in your battery car to isolate your locomotive(s) when charging the battery with track power and a charger. Makes for an easy way to do plus good idea if battery car and locomotive(s) are left connected at time of charging battery with charger and track power is ON.
Forgot to mention if you use the Micro Mark Mini connector or a similar style connector that does not have an indexing provision that you should use 3 pins not 2, the center pin and only one outer pin.. Using 3 it will prevent accidental mismatch of + and - when connecting battery car and locomotive(s) or charger. It will make a complete circuit or not plus can be easily reoriented without creating a failure.
Thanks Soppy
This is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish by posting this subject. Your info is exremely helpful because physical battery size and power is the information model railroader need to know and consider within the scale they are modeling. Those of us in O and G scale usually have suffient space with our diesel locomotive shell and the steam guys have a tender for there battery. On30, HO and N is another issue when going Deadrail and consisting.
You could easily do it and it should work good. A 4S LIPO battery will be about 16.8 v fully charged and above 13 v when discharged. The main consideration is weight. LIPO batteries are about the lightest there is. You could go with a 1S or 2S LIPO and use a DC-DC converter to increase the voltage to whatever you want. A small DC -DC converter could be mounted in each loco and that way you don't have to worry about the voltage drop. A 4S 450 mili amp hr battery weighs about 2 oz. A 1000 mili amp battery is about 4 oz. Depending on your loco , you should be able to run 1 loco for almost 2 hrs on a 450 mili amp hr battery.