I just finished converting my Accucraft Whitcomb to run on battery power. This little loco powers our mine train. But on track power it was never the best runner. So I finally got around to converting it to Battery/RC. After the conversion it is an amazing slow speed running loco. Who knew? Here’s how I did it: Our mine train consists of three Bachmann side dump ore cars and the Accucraft Whitcomb loco. I put the battery and RC components in two of the ore cars. The first ore car has an Airwire G2 receiver and a Phoenix 2k2 sound board, which includes the Phoenix computer interface jack. The second ore car has the battery, on/off switch, and charging jack. I’m using a 14.8 volt Lithium Ion battery. I put a bass reflex speaker under the cab roof of the Whitcomb. I use these mostly for HO but the small size fit great under the Whitcomb roof. Between the battery car and the Airwire car (for the battery wires) and the Airwire car and the loco (for the motor wires) I’m using connectors that look like this (although I painted mine black):
Between the Airwire car and the loco for the lights and sound I’m using Miniatronics connectors. A 3 pin for the lights and a 2 pin for the speaker. To hide the components I made removable plastic covers. Later I’ll glue on ore loads. Here’s what it looks like:
