Induction power

[peteski]

Yes, the Pete would have at least another place to charge his cell phone. Depending on position the cell phone could be used as a bumper while charging. 😀

Moi?  I  don't even own a smart-phone, much less one with wireless charger.  I"m old school baby!
I have to fess up that I do have a $30 Tracfone smart "burner phone" to be strictly used as a WiFi throttle when I visit layoutw whis use that technology.

[Steveruger45]

Moi?  I  don't even own a smart-phone, much less one with wireless charger.  I"m old school baby!
I have to fess up that I do have a $30 Tracfone smart "burner phone" to be strictly used as a WiFi throttle when I visit layoutw whis use that technology.

Ha.  I love it.   😁.  I’m “old school” to an extent too.  I still use win98SE on an old Toshiba laptop (remember those?) almost daily, for dedicated tasks.  I’m very much of the mind set of “if it works well why upgrade just to get the latest Pretty colors etc when it doesn’t do what I want any better or easier”.  That said, I did just splash out on the new TCS WiFi throttle and I just love that as that does do what I want better and easier.

[peteski]

Ha.  I love it.   😁.  I’m “old school” to an extent too.  I still use win98SE on an old Toshiba laptop (remember those?) almost daily, for dedicated tasks.  I’m very much of the mind set of “if it works well why upgrade just to get the latest Pretty colors etc when it doesn’t do what I want any better or easier”.  That said, I did just splash out on the new TCS WiFi throttle and I just love that as that does do what I want better and easier.

Not only I remember  it, I still own a working Toshiba Tecra 740CDT.  Nice large screen (as for as the laptops of the day went), Win 98SE, I upgraded it to DVD-RW drive, PCMCIA card slots. It had no on-board USB, so I use a PCMCIA USB adapter.  I don't use it much nowadays, but the desktop PC I do most of my model related designs and photo editing work is an AMD 1.2GHz Athlon based PC with a 1GB RAM.  Dual boot: Win 98SE/WinXP.  My Alps printer runs from this PC.

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  Sounds like me, although I started with XP, so don't have the dual-boot feature.

[peteski]

Peteski:  Sounds like me, although I started with XP, so don't have the dual-boot feature.

Yes, we live in the past.    I don't go out to the Internet on that old PC - I do my browsing from a Win7 laptop. But even Windows 7 is now obsolete.  It's crazy!  I wonder how long MS will support Win 7 past its EOL date. Probably not as long as they did XP. I like Windows 7 - it still has a lot of the XP feel, and it seems very stable.

[delamaize]

Unfortunately, it is a surprisingly inefficient way of getting power to a small device.  Being on rails is probably an advantage, but that is a LOT of coils to put around.  I could see using it on a “fueling track” to charge a battery.

-Dave

This is the idea I had also. It would add a whole another aspect to operations sessions. Not only trying to stay on schedule, and get all your cars set out/picked up, but be able to have enough "fuel" to make it back to a "refueling" point.

[nstars]

I have worked on a Maglev projects and the big issue with the linear motors was always maintaining a small gap. As induction is based on the same principles, a small gap is probably also here required to get a more or less efficient transfer of energy. The other issue with maglev's was that linear motors are very expensive but I guess that's less of an issue with N scale .

Marc

[delamaize]

I have worked on a Maglev projects and the big issue with the linear motors was always maintaining a small gap. As induction is based on the same principles, a small gap is probably also here required to get a more or less efficient transfer of energy. The other issue with maglev's was that linear motors are very expensive but I guess that's less of an issue with N scale .

Marc

So, What if, the antenna on the locomotive was actually in the fuel tank, then when you stopped on a precise spot at the fueling rack, you pushed a button, and the transmitter antenna was on some kind of lift that popped up between the rails, and closed the gap between them, improving the efficiency. This would also add another step for operations, simulating the actual "Pumping" of the fuel. I dunno, snowballing ideas....

[Sokramiketes]

For a long time I've wondered if it would be practical to deliver power to a locomotive via induction. Mount a series of emitter coils along the underside of the track, and a pickup coil in the loco fuel tank. Wouldn't be practical for a whole layout, but maybe just yards and switching areas.

@peteski correctly inferred what I had in my mind...

Discussion?

Probably too much of a power hog to put coils continuously under the rails.

But coils under rails does sound reminiscent of the linear motor technology from IDL.  Have you seen what Martin has been doing to advance their technology for small railroads?  It's a fix for all the T-gauge issues.  And he's made the motion smoother with half step (stepper motor) ideas.  It's way cool.

https://modelrailmusings.weebly.com/layout---dauntsey-lock.html

[DKS]

Probably too much of a power hog to put coils continuously under the rails.

But coils under rails does sound reminiscent of the linear motor technology from IDL.  Have you seen what Martin has been doing to advance their technology for small railroads?  It's a fix for all the T-gauge issues.  And he's made the motion smoother with half step (stepper motor) ideas.  It's way cool.

https://modelrailmusings.weebly.com/layout---dauntsey-lock.html

Yes, I've seen that, quite encouraging.

And in retrospect, you're probably right about induction being a power hog. But how about something halfway in between that and battery power? Such as using smaller batteries that need frequent recharging that's be provided by induction at strategic locations on the layout (such as places where locos would ordinarily stop, rather than at some remote charging station) so that recharging can happen almost anywhere, anytime. To save even more power, the recharging coils can be energized only when a loco is nearby via proximity sensors.

[railnerd]

Yes, I've seen that, quite encouraging.

And in retrospect, you're probably right about induction being a power hog. But how about something halfway in between that and battery power? Such as using smaller batteries that need frequent recharging that's be provided by induction at strategic locations on the layout (such as places where locos would ordinarily stop, rather than at some remote charging station) so that recharging can happen almost anywhere, anytime. To save even more power, the recharging coils can be energized only when a loco is nearby via proximity sensors.

Inductive chargers for mobile phones are typically about 40%-60% as efficient as the wired charging connection.

-Dave