How does this work?
Wireless Lithium battery charging.
Don’t electrons need a conductor? With the right device equipped for this, you can just drop your phone or tablet on a pad and it’s charging.
The Nissan Leaf you can just park it over some kind of device and it’s charging.
I can see us pulling our engines into a siding, waiting for an hour or so, and departing with a fresh load of 'trons.
OK, you battery technicians, get to work on this! 
This is known as “inductive charging”, both the charger and your battery pack require a coil to operate. The “charge” coil generates an electrical field that is picked up by the “receiving coil” connected to your battery.
While it never occurred to me before, I really like the idea of parking your train on a “charge track”. Nice idea for outdoors as there is no worry of corrosion impeding the charge through the rails. Also no wires to hook up, no polarity issues, and no forgetting to plug the battery into the charger…Neat suggestion!
I guess this may be new as far as putting the concept into practice.
I remember reading years ago about the power companies studying the technology to transmit our electricity.
Ralph
An apology for boring the snot out of you but this is an interesting example…
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wireless-Power-Transmission-Over-Short-Distances-U/
At my last place of employment I designed dozens of the little copper coils shown here. This is exactly how your cordless toothbrush or razor charges. Much safer around water as there are no exposed electronics.
During the early days of electrical experimentation Tesla (inventor of the Tesla coil) proposed wireless electrical transmission as the primary delivery system for society. Truth is for now, wires are much more efficient.
When Will graduated from high school, one of the speakers was from MIT, and he showed a demo of ‘wireless electricity’ that they’re developing. He had a light, and another box, and at a range of maybe 6", the light would go on. Its not exactly just a big magnetic field, but more like an incredibly focused one. Or something, my eyes glazed over when he was trying to describe it to us. But one of the things he said was that it could be embedded in roadways to automatically provide power for electric cars, or you’d have a tabletop “charging station” that you’d just drop your cell phone, etc, on to. I could totally see a charging track for our trains using the same technology.
i have a ele. tooth brush that charges this way, have had it for about 5 years
Richard Beverly said:I was just going to say the same. My battery powered toothbrush work with that technology.
i have a ele. tooth brush that charges this way, have had it for about 5 years
Hey Mark - Thanks for the link The article does a pretty good job of describing the system but contains quite a few questionable statements; for one he describes setting the frequency output of the function generator using a multimeter. Last I knew you couldn’t read AC frequency with a multimeter
Well, certainly not an analog meter but many of the DVM’s now have a frequency reading capability, the Fluke meter I have at home (don’t remember the model number) not only reads frequency but will measure capacitors as well !
Quote:Not exactly 'inductive' charging, but when I converted one of my locos to battery, I set up the tender wheels so it culd be recharged from a piece of 'live' track. The track would be under the coaling stage or water tower so you would run the loco to the depot for servicing... Much as John described, but given that most of our locos already have pcikups that we stop using - why bother with induction!
I really like the idea of parking your train on a "charge track".
Well, Pete, I’m inclined to agree with you, and I’m sure I’d go the simplest route, which I think is the one you’re talking about. That said, there is the old bugaboo of poor contact due to dirty track… and let’s not forget the engaging challenge of working out the very neat, and perhaps not very difficult, technical problem that John B. has proposed.
So, is this magic, or smoke and mirrors? 
Steve,all technologies “progress”. Not always for the better either.
First we had NiCd which was great if you looked after the way the battery packs were charged. Sanyo claim 1,000 recharges. Plus they can last for many years. Only real downside is they are toxic for the environment of incorrectly disposed of.
Then came NiMh. They had only 500 recharges and they self discharged at a prodigious rate. Each self discharge counts as a cycle whether you actually used the battery pack or not. Ever went to use your digital camera with AA rechargeables and they were flat? That is why Sanyo invented the Alkaline Hybrids. They still only have 500 recharges.
Then came Li-Ion. The latest and greatest. Not for me they ain’t. I can’t use them here in Australia because my battery supplier does not fit a proper low voltage cut off. If they get too low they are toast. I understand that even if they did have the low voltage, they all have a built in life span of about 3 years no matter how many times you charge them. About the planned life span of a lap top or mobile phone.
The latest and greatest is now Li-Po. They are much the same as Li-Ion with the same life span but infinitely more dangerous. They are supposed to be charged inside a ceramic container for safety which basically precludes them for our usage.
I know nothing of Li-Fe. They may in fact be the holy Grail of batteries. I don’t know, but I doubt it.
Given the shortcomings of all the newer chemistries I firmly believe that NiCd is still the best value for money over the long term. I know of many cases where Sub C NiCd batteries I fitted 10 - 15 years and more, ago that are still going strong.
So is induction charging smoke and mirrors? I’d wait until it is proven to work and proven to be safe before believing any of the hype that is undoubtedly going to accompany the marketing.
It’s good to get the benefit of your knowledge and experience, Tony. I wouldn’t have known any of that, just the hype from the mfrs… The timing of your info is good for me, too. As it happens, I’m in the market for soma batteries right now. Guess I’ll stick to NiCd.
Thanks!
Tony, I would not be so certain of that 3 year life limit statement on lithum. I have quite a stack of my own Lithium packs that still work fine with full charge and full power discharge cycles and they are over 5 years old. Plus i have many dozens and dozens of client installs done over the last 4-5 years all still going strong. I have had NIMH fails, but never Lithium. I started doing Lithium installs about 4-5 years ago , and had been testing them myself on my own trains for about a year before that.
Finding good nicad now is getting harder, Cadmium is very environmentally unfriendly, and the cost of Lithium is near to dropping to that of Nicad anyway. The hobby industry has effectively abandoned nicad, even for the most basic applications. So , buying nicad nowadays is sort of a oddball decision.
Jonathan/EMW
www.rctrains .com
I’m going to go back to wind up and pull toys. Or maybe track power.
Will you guys make my mind!!!
Steve: I don’t blame you in the least! Me, I’ll continue to use the last chargers I got from NWRC in Kirkland. Oh course, I can also use the older ones from RCS, but not on NIMH batteries. And I would not fly in a 787 untill they remove the Ion Batteries from the cargo area!
Paul
I understand that lead-acid is a proven technology. :lol:
You just have to keep the battery upright so all the juice doesn’t run out.
Jon, I can only base my opinion on Li-Ion with reference to my own experiences. I have had a number of appliances using Li-Ion and they have all had battery failure after three years. That experience does not include Li-Ion with trains as my battery supplier will still not fit low voltage cut off pcb’s to the packs they make. Just over current pcb’s. They may fit low voltage pcb’s one day and then I will be delighted to test and recommend them if they are any good.
I just wish it was economically viable to import suitably protected Li-Ion packs into OZ.
In the meantime, yes I know NiCd is not very environmentally friendly if incorrectly disposed of, but they are still available here. Mainly for use in the medical emergency response field. I know why too. They are reliable and last a long time. Sure they are big, but not so big as to be unusable for most large scale locos.
Woah there! Not so fast…
I believe a few generations of folk in ye UK have in fact used small onboard lead-acid batteries. It’s probably more a matter of what you’re used to than anything else; in ye UK some guys have been using such rechargeables since before the invention of rechargeable dry cells. Prolly since early radio days, in fact… And larger ones for track power are an old idea dating 'wayback too. As I write this I’m getting more and more curious about the subject of small lead acid batteries; I’m going to look into it a bit deeper. Cheers!