No I’m not stupid, hehe
I have no power supply yet and just want to test run my tortoises. I wonder if I can use a 9V battery without destroying anything?
Since the battery has less voltage than a power pack, it should not be a problem. A friend uses a 9V battery to test his locomotives, seems to work OK.
Bob Boudreau
I don’t remember what the amperage potential of a 9 volt battery is, but the lower voltage may draw more amps than would be good for the tortise. Wait for more responses from the electrically unchallenged.
Will
A Tortoise switch machine draws only something like 15 mA, so the 9 volt battery should be fine for testing one just to see if it works okay. But remember, a Tortoise draws current continually, so a battery would not be a good choice for permanent installation on an operating layout.
Ok, I will only use it for testing until I have a power supply. Thanks for the good answer.
You might want to be a little careful with that 9V battery. We use a 9V battery WITH A 510 OHM RESISTOR in series with Hankscraft switch motors on a friend’s layout to avoid burning out the motor. Like you, we use them for testing and to make sure we’ve got the right pair of wires in hand before soldering them to the toggle switch.
The Tortoise motors may have resistors built in but you ought to be careful about this. Resistors are only a few cents each.
Chuck
Tortoises are designed to run on 12v without resistors, so a 9v battery is just fine.
I ran some of mine with a 12v battery out of my UPS, until it finally died - it wasn’t strong enough to work in the UPS but for the 15ma or so draw of a Tortoise it was fine.
So you won’t hurt anything using a 9v battery. Better for it than moving by hand, but my old ‘test’ Tortoise, which is about 12 years old or so, I have REALLY abused over the years, disassembled many times, moved by hand so hard it stripped the gears, you name it. And it still whirs the same as a brand new one when I apply power. But I wouldn’t trust it to be installed anywhere, so I just used it as a load to test things, like the control circuits and stationary decoders.
–Randy
I emailed Circuitron yesterday and got the answer today. For all that are new to this hobby, Circuitron is the people that makes the Tortoise Slow Motion Switch Machine.
My question:
I wonder if it’s safe to test run my tortoises with a 9V battery or should I avoid it? The reason I ask is because I have no power supply yet but need to test run the tortoises before I mount them in foam on my layout.
Circuitron’s answer:
Perfectly safe! They will run a bit slow, but they should work just fine for testing purposes.
