Thisenginehadahabitof shortingat thepilot truckonsomeof
mytightercurves. Since it isa tenderdrive, Idecided tonotuse
anyof thepickups in theengine,but relyonlyon theall-wheel
pickup in the tender. Ihadpreviouslyaddedpickups toallwheels
in the tender, so theenginecan run tender-only if Iwant. Thanks
to thebattery, Idon'tneed touseall thosepickups in theengine.
That simplified thewiring taskabit.
Italsosoundsprettygood too.Putting thespeaker in thefirebox
helpsamplify thesound.
Withseveraldozenhoursofoperation, Ihave the followingobser-
vations. So far, thebatterysystem is90%ofwhat Iexpected. I
noted that if I runaheavy trainand it stallson thegrade (Ihave
someveryslightgradeson the layout just tokeepmyengineerson
their toes), Ihave to reset the throttlespeed tozeroand thengive
it the"gas" toget itmoving.
Probably thebiggest shortcoming in thedesign is that there isno
batterychargegauge. Soyouhaveno ideawhenyouare running
2
2: The battery power supply and battery fill most of the
space on top of themotor in the tender. It took a full pile of
wood to hide it.
