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Feb. 17th, 2025 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psipsyRecent brainworm idea: Seeing if I can power my model trains using an R/C battery pack. Of course, I'd have to use a circuit to boost the voltage, and then use that to power the throttle device itself. Then it becomes a question of how long the battery would last. Is it necessary to do this? Not at all. Is it economical to do this? Absolutely not. It's about finding out if I can and then seeing what else I can apply that to. I got the idea when I was using a 9V battery to test-bump some locomotives. That works but it drains a 9V battery kinda quick. In comparison, an R/C battery pack is designed to provide gobs of current for extended periods of time.
The limitation of the R/C battery pack is that its usual voltage of 7.2V or 7.4V isn't high enough for proper operation of the throttle. That's where a buck-boost device comes in. It's able to take power from within a range of something like 5V to 30V and turn it into a higher or lower voltage, typically in the same range. So it can turn that 7.2V into 12V or 13V.
And lo, I set off to build such a contraption, harvesting various parts, only to find there's already such a device that gets 95% of the way there, complete with a connector for an R/C battery. Of course it's cheaper than the total of the other parts I got. Alrighty then.
Getting that part unearthed another revelation, especially with electronic parts online. See, when shopping on ebay, I'll narrow it down to "US only" so I'm not getting things that would take forever to ship. Problem is, some of the sellers are using Jamaica NY as the item location. What's special about that? That's the Post Office for international arriving mail after it clears Customs. Meaning if the listing says it's there or the tracking shows it's shipping from there, it's certainly not already in the US and is coming from somewhere else, usually China. I'm not against the items coming from China, it's the sneakiness that irks me.
Of any problems I may have had while living in a trailer near a forest, I can say that a wendigo wasn't one of them. I think it was all the computers and assorted electronic devices I had running that kept them away. Maybe wifi signals make them feel itchy or something.
The limitation of the R/C battery pack is that its usual voltage of 7.2V or 7.4V isn't high enough for proper operation of the throttle. That's where a buck-boost device comes in. It's able to take power from within a range of something like 5V to 30V and turn it into a higher or lower voltage, typically in the same range. So it can turn that 7.2V into 12V or 13V.
And lo, I set off to build such a contraption, harvesting various parts, only to find there's already such a device that gets 95% of the way there, complete with a connector for an R/C battery. Of course it's cheaper than the total of the other parts I got. Alrighty then.
Getting that part unearthed another revelation, especially with electronic parts online. See, when shopping on ebay, I'll narrow it down to "US only" so I'm not getting things that would take forever to ship. Problem is, some of the sellers are using Jamaica NY as the item location. What's special about that? That's the Post Office for international arriving mail after it clears Customs. Meaning if the listing says it's there or the tracking shows it's shipping from there, it's certainly not already in the US and is coming from somewhere else, usually China. I'm not against the items coming from China, it's the sneakiness that irks me.
Of any problems I may have had while living in a trailer near a forest, I can say that a wendigo wasn't one of them. I think it was all the computers and assorted electronic devices I had running that kept them away. Maybe wifi signals make them feel itchy or something.
