# Most common type of battery/battery car plug?



## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi guys,

I'm prewiring a locomotive so that if I want to go to someone else's layout and run on battery DCC (DRC-300), and they have a battery car, I can just plug in my loco. Can you tell me what type of plug I should be using on the back of the loco? 

Thanks,
Keith


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I'd say the 2 pin black plastic "JST" ones that are sticking out the ends of every Aristo loco. 

Greg


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

I'll second that, Keith... Available from All-Electronics.com


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

bring a short cable to convert the sex of the connector you use... 

The Aristo standard is male on the loco, both ends.... i.e. you can see the 2 metal pins... in stan's picture the males are top right and bottom left. 

Greg


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

Perfect---know the ones and I think I even have a couple from an old airplane. 

Thanks guys! 

Keith


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

What's the ETA on the DRC 300? Massoth's price list has it listed as "new" as of May 1, 2012, but also that it may not yet be available. That's an improvement over "Summer 2010," but we know published release dates tend to be a bit "flexible" in this hobby.  

In terms of connectors, if you're outfitting the loco to travel to others' railroads, I'd suggest using a coaxial power socket like what we commonly use to charge batteries on the rear of the loco, then build a bunch of adapters with the coax power plug on one end, and a JST, Tamaya, and Dean's on the other. (Maybe one with the power plug and two alligator clips for the "universal" approach.) That way you can run regardless of whether others use what's "common" or not. If you use what's "common," you're still dependent on your hosts doing the same. Having a flexible approach on your end makes running elsewhere all the easier. Also wouldn't hurt to call your hosts to find out what they use so you can build the appropriate adapter. 

Later, 

K


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## VictorSpear (Oct 19, 2011)

I keep a couple of adapters stored in our portable _IntelliCar _for various situations. Besides the Aristo plug, I found I need to use the 2pin JST+ coaxial adapter quite often. I've expanded the collection to add a waterproof polarized 4 pin adapter to include I2C signals from the _IntelliCar _when the loco will accept auxilliary control.

















Cheers,
Victor


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Kevin, the advantage of the JST's, besides that they ARE the most common, and are STOCK on tens of thousands of locos, is that they won't pull apart like your coaxial power plug. I make adapters from the JST to other stuff for tapping power from the rails of my DCC layout, for example and to test tracks, so getting power from the rails to a Kadee rail cleaner is click-click, and powering a test track and clipping a QSI or Zimo programmer to the test track. 

Greg


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I would be really careful about using the JST connectors between various "vehicles" unless you cut off the hook. If you do not cut off the hook and the "vehicles" derail, you will likely pull the wires out of the connectors. 
I have never experienced them coming undone on their own.


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

Good advice Tony--thanks! They really should be able to pull apart on their own because as long as the engine is coupled there should be no stress or force on them. 

Keith


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By TonyWalsham on 13 Jul 2012 09:05 AM 
I would be really careful about using the JST connectors between various "vehicles" unless you cut off the hook. If you do not cut off the hook and the "vehicles" derail, you will likely pull the wires out of the connectors. 
I have never experienced them coming undone on their own. Great advice.... I've been cutting them off since the very start. It's saved many a problem.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Kevin, the advantage of the JST's, besides that they ARE the most common, and are STOCK on tens of thousands of locos, is that they won't pull apart like your coaxial power plug. 

I'm with Tony and Stan here--you _want_ the plugs to pull out on their own in the event of a derailment. Been there, done that. 

I like the JST plugs just fine, and I think it's great that Aristo puts them on their locos. (Sure makes reviewing them on my outdoor line a breeze!) But Keith is looking for what's common coming _from_ a battery car so he can most easily plug his loco into it should the situation arise. That could be _anything_ since there is no "common" battery car. If anything is "common" in that regard, it's the coax power socket for no other reason than Tony, Del, and Rick all offer that as their charge/aux power port for their battery power installation kits.

For me, I recommend a socket simply because I don't want extra wires dangling off the back of my locomotive when not needed. Yeah, I applaud Aristo for including them, but if I were to run one of their locos routinely, I'd lop it off or tie it up before it got caught on something and broke. Murphy would make sure you wouldn't notice the break until you traveled 200 miles with your loco to a friend's railroad only to then find out that your plug is bad. 

Later, 

K


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

Interesting discussion ... but if you are going to a friends layout, why wouldn't you just bring your own battery car? Then you know it all works.

There are so many different combinations of what goes in the battery car and what is in the locomotive, that if you are only counting on two wires, you may lose a bunch of features (sound, etc.)

Sadly, I don't even have a standard for my own railroad. Some interconnects are two-wire red JST connector (not to be confused with the ones under discussion here, although I like those as well), and some are 4 wire Deans plugs. Most of my installations require 4 connections if a battery car is to be used; 2 for the motor, and 2 for the headlight (which provides feedback to the operator during start-up and programming, as well as directional control).


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

why wouldn't you just bring your own battery car? Then you know it all works. 
Because once you start down the dark side, forever will it rule your destiny. } 

Later, 

K


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

The main reason I started using the 2.5 mm x 5 mm DC coax plugs and sockets many years ago versus the telephone type jacks, is that the DC coax type *cannot* short out the circuit when the plug is inserted into the socket. 
The DC coax system comes in various sizes from quite small up to bigger than 2.5 mm. When I first started using them, the 2.1 mm x 5 mm size was most common for the output side of mains power supplies. I chose 2.5 mm so that it was not possible to plug a simple power supply with a 2.1 mm plug into the battery circuit and damage the battery. Nowadays it is 2.5 mm x 5 mm that is being used for lap top power supplies. 

DC coax sockets (aka jacks) are SPDT switches, which opened all sorts of possibilities for making them auxiliary battery car sockets, as well as just charger sockets.


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## Michael Glavin (Jan 2, 2009)

JST=Japanese Solderless Connector

The acronym, JST is used widely and loosely with regard to what qualifies as a JST type connector. There is no standard as far as I know less that it’s a solderless connector.

The RC industry recognizes a JST connector as a 2-pin battery plug/socket (do a Google search). These were common of RC receiver batteries for the most part, later micro helis and others. ALL that said unless I misunderstood what's been discussed above JST‘s are NOT the typical common latched plugs as used by Aristocraft. The industry recognizes the Aristo plugs as LST-SMP, yet they are JST.

There are many types of “JST” plugs in the industry, again a little digging on Google will reap lots of data. Very common of late in the RC industry is the JST XH, JST-PHR and more.

I use male/female solder type connectors typical of a serial port connector or similar. I mount the females under the car body generally and plug in whatever suits my needs, or I make-up pigtails that emulate air lines or similar with quick disconnects; one or two on each end of the car and couple them in middle. With black shrink tube they make very convincing air lines. These same solder type pin connectors work great for internal wiring of locos and their electronics.

Michael

The "*common*" JST connector is pictured below


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Common in the world, maybe, not common on G scale locos externally. And there are 2 companies that "make" battery cars, the "other" RCS, and Aristo (I do believe they were selling them)... 

so for* most common*, I cannot see any contest if you want to take the question literally. 

That's the thread title for this topic... now if you want to say "best plug", well I would have given a *much *different answer. 

Greg


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I agree that there are many types of connectors made by JST and we should not just lump all the various types together as JST. 
Just to confuse things further, that *common* "JST" connector shown by Michael is described by Hi-Tec as a "Low Channel" connector. The regular (as in most popular) 3 x way servo lead connector is described as a "High Channel" connector. I have no idea why. 
I stock the type shown by Michael, the type used by Aristo and the two types used by Hi-Tec for battery R/C connections.


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

I've used the JST connectors on my cars for years and they work great! Our club uses them on all of their cars. They are reliable and (a very important consideration) universal! When we want to run different locomotives or cars or_ whatever,_ it is so much easier to have compatible battery connectors. There's an old saying regarding quality vs quantity: "Quantity has a quality all of it's own!" 

Here's a shot of my "San Juan" consist running on a 9.6v NiMH battery car. Each car is wired in parallel so that it can be turned on and off without interrupting the power to the other cars. The connectors are Aristo JST's:










Of course, I did things *ss backwards and put the female side up front (I had a 50/50 shot, sue me.) Jim Carter (pimanjc) gave me the idea to use shrinkwrap tubing around 
the wires to add strength. Although I haven't cut off my hooks, I haven't experienced any heads being ripped off during derailments (knock on wood!)


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Shrink tubing is a great idea, keeps from chafing the insulation, and looks better too. By the way, I am not a fan across the board of cutting the locking tabs, several times I've avoided a runaway loco when the loco-tender drawbar came loose and it stayed connected to the tender by a couple of theses connectors. 

Greg


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

Good discussion, thanks guys. I will also check with the guys in our club that run battery to see what they use. 

Keith


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