Lastspikemike,
One new battery per decade may not sound like much for one electric toothbrush, but when one has 100 to 200 locomotives like myself, that’s a different story. At say $20 per battery, that’s $2000 to $4000 every ten years. Provided, of course, that they still make the same battery in 10 years.
I just spent a small fortune on a CMX track cleaning car![^o)] Now you tell me that I won’t have to bother cleaning track in the future![*-)]
Seriously, I choose not to pronounce this sort of technological innovation as being a scam. I’d rather wait and see. As for the nuclear waste aspect, I have a collection of ‘dead’ smoke detectors that I believe are radioactive. I haven’t been bothered to take them to the County Hazardous Waste Disposal, so they sit in my basement probably glowing in the dark and making the spiders grow twice as big![swg][(-D][(-D][(-D]
Cheers!!
Dave
are these intended as a replacement for a battery or as an additional device that continually recharges the battery so that a battery could be fully recharged overnight?
It’s kinda both. What they say is that they take irradiated graphite and isotopically separate the C14 and use CVD to make metastable diamond lattice – I suspect this would actually be QQC diamond synthesis or ‘nondetonation nanodiamond’ which is also a microwave-assisted process for making their serious power diamonds but they probably keep this a trade secret to go with their patents) They indicate that one decay beta (which is, after all, an electron) can produce a cascade of further electron displacement in the lattice that produces more current from the relatively energetic nuclear event.
Presumably some of this occurs in the surrounding blanket of normal diamond, but again they play coy on this. The part I get suspicious about is what happens over time to the N14 cumulatively produced; they probably have an answer but gloss it over in the cartoon.
Decay events are fixed by the relative half-life of the C14, which for most of the prospective source is relatively young. Getting much practical output will involve a considerable actual mass of C14 diamond, which poses an interesting risk if the composite fractures in service or is inadvertently burned (diamond having much the combustion characteristics of good anthracite). I do not have my rubber bible handy to see any uncommon decay modes in C14 or possible volunteer ‘dopants’ from other activated contaminants of their graphite, but those too might limit the practical size if one of these things as a primary power source; I think it likelier that it will be a continuous ‘trickle charge’ to a more conventional battery pack, like the engine in a tripower locomotive or the original Green Goat.
As I say, it is exceptionally unlikely that 100 battery powered locomotives would require any battery replacements at all. Li ion batteries (the only type currently suitable for dead rail) service life is pretty much limited only by recharge cycles. Ironically, low run times would slightly shorten maximum theoretical service life due to the need to recharge even unused locomotives periodically. Practically speaking the batteries in 100 Li Ion powered locomotives would last forever.
Here’s an illustration of the dead rail battery problem:
The word battery now includes single cell units in North American vocabulary. Common household batteries are actually dry cells (as opposed to the 6 wet cells in most automotive batteries). These are not stores of electricity, they “generate” electricity from scratch by chemical reaction when the circuit is closed. In fact you cannot recharge the usual household dry cell. Only rechargeable cells store electricity generated outside the cell.
The single biggest obstacle to battery powered cars is the problem of external electricity generating capacity. The World does not yet have and cannot build sufficient generating capacity to recharge an electric powered vehicle fleet. Widespread nuclear power generating plants could solve that problem but then we’d still have the same energy density limits that face our miniature world of possible dead rail motive power. Not to mention natural resource limits on certain elements required to build the highest density batteries we currently know how to build.
Same problem, same lack of solutions. Back to wired DC power…
Maybe in a large enough scale, and if you’re one of those once a month type operators. The current lithium technology that fits in an HO locomotive, no unprototypical “always couple this car behind the loco” shennanigans, last maybe 2 hours of run time tops. If you run trains no more than that, 3 times a week, that’s 3 charge cycles a week. 150 a year. Typically they last 300-500 charge cycles - so that’s 2-3 years. Yes, li-ion batteries in dead rail locos will need to be swapped out, not often but certainly many times over the loco’s (or owner’s) lifetime.
ANd this little IC size radioisotope generator - sure the concept works, we’re still getting signals from Voyager after 45 years on the job, but it prodices so little power when shrunk down to that size, that to get usable power, you need enough of those little IC size things to fill a small computer case. The low power may be good for sustaining a device in its sleep mode - some modern devices can deep sleep with such low current consumption they might as well be off, but as soon as some actual work needs to be done and the device wakes up, current demand (relatively) shoots through the roof. This may be an ideal solution for somethign that spends 99% of its time in deep sleep - the little power generator has enough power to sustain sleep mode and very slowly charge a supercapacitor which then supplies the power during the active time. It’s not suitable to power an electric motor hauling itself and a few pounds around on rails.
–Randy
Tesla claims a minimum of 1500 charge cycles for their cells in battery packs. Service life is warranted to be 8 years, admittedly arbitrary.
Perhaps the charging system regulation software cannot be applied in miniature but if it can then increase your estimates by x3 to x5.
Then there’s the total number of locomotives run effect. 100 locomotives x 2 hours each per week is 200 operating hours per week, for one operator that’s a lot even for a dedicated hobbiest running say four to six locomotives at one time.
At any rate, the problem currently is insufficient energy density, not service life. The bigger the Li Ion battery for a given rate of energy use the longer the service life will be. The main problem is the biggest battery that might fit inside an HO locomotive will be far too small to be useful for most of us. Dead rail is a dead end unless this barrier can be overcome.
My very first electric train, a Hornby 00 0-4-0 tank locomotive goods shunter which replaced my Hornby 0 gauge clockwork setup, ran from two 6 volt drycell batteries connected to track in series. Even this external battery pack was far too small for my boyhood operating demands prompting my dad to construct a 12v DC powerpack for me, from bits he bought from electronics stores.
This is not true in North America, and we CAN build sufficient power generating capability from renewable sources or traditional fueled power plants with no new technology anywhere needed.
-Kevin
It is most true in the USA. The maths isn’t that difficult. And that’s just for the passenger car fleet.
Just try running a Tesla in the Bay Area right now, for example. Your power issues are getting worse even without the prospective load from electric cars.
In Canada the problem would be stopping power exports to the USA and getting that power redistributed to where we would need it. Canada exports a significant portion of its electrical generating capacity, even from the fossil fuelled part. But our market is smaller than the State of California and our hydro electric generating capacity is cost limited rather than potential limited. But EV can’t work here with current technology. To understand the problem here just try running a dead rail garden railway here at Xmas…
Drifting off topic but the power density problem affects railroads far more than it does cars. Highway truck transport faces the same limitations but even more so. At least locomotives can draw power direct from wires…
[#dots]
-Kevin
aren’t you stating conclusions without explaining the facts they are based on
why should i be persuaded by whatever you say when you don’t provide facts?
It’s worse than I thought - this product does not even exist yet, not in even a test sample, the company has been around since Feb 2019. And the energy density is absolutely horrid. Doing some math, if it was in the form factor of a standard AA battery, the self recharge from this “diamond and graphene technology” would take 2400 hours!
ANd nothing new - there have been tritium based ones available commercially for about 10 years now. OK, they last 20-40 years instead of 100 - but they really exist and have been tested. This supposed product is so much hot marketing air.
So unfortuantely, long life battery on board dead rail locomotives are still the future.
–Randy
I’m not sure why you assume I am trying to persuade anyone about anything. As the song goes " I know what I know…"
The US imports a significant amount of electrical power from Canada, about net 10% of our total generating capacity. It is therefore self evident that the USA generates insufficient power for its own needs. California now has insufficient baseline power generating capacity to cover for its intermittent “green power” so certainly can’t cover any increase in demand from EV.
The topic of this thread is about the possible effect of new micro generating power on our hobby. I mention the larger picture only because the same inexorable limitations affect the microcosm as at the extreme macro level.
The problem with dead rail, attractive though it is in terms of mimicking prototype, is energy density. The batteries take up space needed for traction weight. Recharging is a sideshow compared to that problem. “Wireless” inductive recharging is already a mature technology which answers the question about run time adequately. The real problem is not enough space inside the locomotive shell for both power and weight. Charging is solved.
On another thread the idea of duplicating prototype diesel electric locomotives is discussed, albeit very briefly, in the context of duplicating prototype throttles. With enough money to bu
The problem is that there are myriads of people that come to these forums and read to get information, and they never post themselves.
Just look at the number of views some posts receive with few responses. Those are people looking for good information.
When innacurate things get stated, they need to be read and pointed out for the sake of these forums having continued legitimacy.
Anything that is posted just for fun, or to tantalize a response, should be confined to the Diner.
-Kevin
I only post accurate information. I only post with those general readers in mind, I am one of those.
I have zero interest in “being right” and I am always right. That is because I read what people write very carefully. I assume every poster believes that what they write is equally accurate and informative.
On the occasions where a poster shows that I may be wrong I simply change my own opinion to accord with the correct information.
That is how I learn to correct my own errors. I simply assume everybody does this. I know of no other way to learn from others superior knowledge or experience.
Posting incorrect information to a board like this leads to posts that correct that information not just for the original poster but everyone who reads it. For boards like this the information can benefit subsequent readers many years later. It did for me. Saved me literally hundreds of dollars and hours of time.
I would never waste anyone’s time or risk them wasting their money by deliberately posting inaccurate information. I expect to be corrected if I do so inadvertently. I prefer to be corrected in fact. My ego is unassailable, in case you missed that. The only permanent error one can make is by refusing to change one’s own knowledge base when corrected by someone who knows.
There are some very authoritative people posting to this board and I’ve learned a lot already, becoming “righter” myself in the process. I spent a lot of time reading this and several other related forums before choosing this one to join.
I rarely respond or add to posts already containing authoritative information.