Large Scale Central

New Technology for Trains?

Apparently, the H-cell as mounted in the R/C car is a 20W version and is not the same as the H-30 (30W) unless they made a mistake in the description of the R/C car http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/file/H-cellBrochure.pdf Zubi

Zbigniew Struzik said:
Apparently, the H-cell as mounted in the R/C car is a 20W version and is not the same as the H-30 (30W) unless they made a mistake in the description of the R/C car http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/file/H-cellBrochure.pdf Zubi
I know its the 20W system. that is the one they show as coming in a kit. I was thinking of doing two of them to get the needed power. The 30W would work and I think even some of the bigger ones would work two. I do not have a box car with me to get the sizes I need so as I work this out on paper I am trying to go on the safe side. Once I get back home and can get my hands on one of my cars then I can get the sizes I need.

the more I think about it the more I am liking the ideal of making a car just for the tanks and one for the power unit. I’m thinking the run time could be pushed to upwards of 3 hours that way. You would even have the power needed to run the lights and sounds as well. I did a conversion the metric sizes they give and they are falling in the size area I belive will fit. please don’t hold me to this but I belive the 30W was something like 8x6x4 inches and that would fit in a box car with room to spair.

as soon as I can get a hold of someone there I will let you all know what I find out. the big question I have now is how long to get the hydrogen needed to power this using the solar power system.

Dave Healy said:
Thanks for that, Zubi. I noticed the storage canister, and was hoping Geoff could comment on how much space the unit takes up when all the ancillary bits are included.

As I am the guy with the bricks, you now know why I bought a 20Amp transformer/controller.


Dave, How about the H-200 then;-) This one produces up to 7.2 Apm at 28Volt !! This equals to 200 Watt power, and should be enough to pull your bricks;-))) The size is considerable but not overwhelming 223mm x 109mm x 94mm and would fit in a larger loco. Hydrogen consumption rate is high of course but this is the price for this kind of power - 2.7 liter/minute, I wonder whether one can control the power delivered by the cells by controlling the hydrogen flow?? This would solve the need to control voltage electronically and would allow much more efficient use of power and thus hydrogen. This unit has a low voltage shut down but I think this is only a measure to guarantee output voltage level in other words it is a quality measure for the cell performance and if not applied or bypassed the cell will deliver power roughly propotional to the hydrogen flow rate. Could anyone comment whether this is the case? Curious Zubi

What would be even more interesting than using the H-cells for electricity generation only, would be using them for the combined production of electrical energy and heat - rather than wasting the heat energy and blowing it away with the fans this heat could be used to generate steam;-)) I wonder who will be the first to build a hybrid live-steam-hydro large scale locomotive??!!! Best wishes from Tokyo, Zubi PS of course the water generated could then be reused;-)))))

Interesting. A 30w unit would run my Mallet as well as my battery does as long as the Hydrogen in the tank hold up.

I wonder how much it would cost?

Now that Mike has solved the problem of exhausting green house gases with a solar powered hydrolizer, and Zubi has hypothesized a Hydrogen/steam hybrid, this might actually be workable.

I encourage the techies among us to get busy on this.

I got a reply from them on Tuesday. Sorry I did not post this sooner but it has been a crazy week for me.
The short is this. Yes it will all fit in a box car not truble there. It could fit in a tender but I think you would not have room for much more in there. this is based on a tender that would look right behind a Mogul or larger Loco. Deisel fans I belive it could be made to fit in a Loco but I personaly would do a box car behind the Loco.

Now the bad news…This comes at a cost of $1500.00 US. From what they said the smaller ones just would not make the power needed to run a train for any amount of time worth it.

So, I will not be trying this.

to sum it up.

  1. will it work…Yes.
  2. is it worth it…NO

There you have it fokes. Now, to see if I can get a nuke train to run.

Is it worth it?

Well… wait till next week. :lol:

Now this is interesting:

One of the promising new nuclear technologies involves VERY high temperatures. Only drawback is there is LOTS of waste heat to get rid of. There is also a technique for splitting water into H and O that uses up LOTS of heat. Could be, we’d get a nuclear power plant that gets lots of electric out of the Uranium it uses and, as a side effect, produces LOTS of Hydrogen.

Geoff George said:
[...] Now the bad news................This comes at a cost of $1500.00 US. From what they said the smaller ones just would not make the power needed to run a train for any amount of time worth it.
Geoff, new technology is usually expensive. It may become cheaper is a few years... But 1500USD is still only one third of the price of a live steam K-28 for example;-) Best wishes, Zubi

Thanks for keeping us in the loop on your research, Geoff.

Yep, fifteen hundred clams (assuming we had it) would be far better spent in other interesting ways!

Zbigniew Struzik said:
Geoff George said:
[...] Now the bad news................This comes at a cost of $1500.00 US. From what they said the smaller ones just would not make the power needed to run a train for any amount of time worth it.
Geoff, new technology is usually expensive. It may become cheaper is a few years... But 1500USD is still only one third of the price of a live steam K-28 for example;-) Best wishes, Zubi
and that is the reason I don't have live steam. Maybe when I win the Lotto.
Geoff George said:
Zbigniew Struzik said:
Geoff George said:
[...] Now the bad news................This comes at a cost of $1500.00 US. From what they said the smaller ones just would not make the power needed to run a train for any amount of time worth it.
Geoff, new technology is usually expensive. It may become cheaper is a few years... But 1500USD is still only one third of the price of a live steam K-28 for example;-) Best wishes, Zubi
and that is the reason I don't have live steam. Maybe when I win the Lotto.
Well, I have live steam.... every time I brew up some Earl Grey. As a matter of fact, I think I'll have some now! :P

Hmm. Not a bad idea, actually.