A long line of severe storms with a couple of tornados came through this area just before dawn Sunday morning, wreaking havoc and destruction. Luckily we only lost power and some of our old pecan trees mid sized limbs. Actually, we even had power until late yesterday afternoon when Georgia Power turned it off to facilitate repairs somewhere in the grid. It came back on this morning around 7. So, last night was a night with no trains (haven’t figure out how to wind them up yet), so I read some of Sam Posey’s book “Playing With Trains”. Candles and the like were in short supply so I had to make do with another source of illumination. Can you guess what it is? [8D]
Glad to hear your OK! Those storms looked worse than the ones that blew through here a few weeks ago. Oklahoma had 22 deaths.
I’m guessing the light is train related. Something you made from an insulator maybe??
There’s 4 of these in the front of the house beside the walkway and drive, and that many in the back along the walkway. I brought them in and put them in strategic spots and they gave enough light to keep you from running in to things.
I found one set (4) at Fred’s for less than $10. Don’t know if you’re familiar with them, kinda like a dollar store. That may have been a summer closeout last year.
If you run straight DC, you can take a 9 v. battery and wire it into your track to run one locomotive, anyway! When Hurricane Isabelle knocked us off line, my son and I went upstairs and wore out 2 or 3 batteries in the dark!
Well, I have actually thought about getting two deep cycle RV batteries, connecting them to a regulator and a solar panel. Then using that power source as the power supply to my DCC system and layout. But also figured that I wouldn’t save much by doing that, still, it’s an option. I would probably have to take it a step farther and light the room too.
makes me wonder , can you run a DCC layout off a car battery with appropriate overload protection ? maybe one of those battery backup units they sell to keep your computer or server running for a while after the power goes off . i’d guess a model railroad would run quite a while on a charge
Sounds like this is headed towards the small layout is better than the big layout thing. You could always run your layout off a generator connected to an exercise bike. I remember seeing a guy that did that for his kids TV. It sure kept the TV viewing in check and the kid healthy.
A good quality computer UPS unit will run just about any low power load. I have a large one on my server and two older small ones running a couple of lights. This gives me enough time to start the generator.
For those who don’t know, a UPS unit runs off of a battery, usually 12volts DC, and converts it to 120volts AC with a very poorly approximated sinusoidal waveform. Most equipment is OK with this. Some electronics are sensitive to the resulting noise on the waveform.
So, a UPS of proper capacity should run trains DC or DCC. With a DC loco you could just use a car battery feeding a rheostat. Trouble is all of those wall warts won’t work that way.
