# battery RC+sound in a LGB Mogul



## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Can battery RC and Phoenix sound into a LGB C&S Mogul? I hate having to use a dedicated battery car trailing and engine/tender. I prefer to put all the gear into the engine/tender if I can. Would like to get away from track power over the winter down time this year. Looking at getting a Mogul and would like to go the full battery/sound/rc on this one. Mike


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

You can very easily fit everything inside the tender. 

Here's an install inside a C-16 tender, which is about the same size, but a touch narrower (My dad's got the same set-up in his Mogul tender, but I don't have photos.):










This is with an Airwire and Phoenix combination, and a 14.8v Li-Ion battery. The speaker is a 3" speaker similar to the one out of a Bachmann 4-6-0--it sits around 1" high. The mogul may already have a speaker in it depending on which version. 

For the chuffs--if it's a sound Mogul--there's a cam on the axle of the mogul that you can use to trigger the sounds. That will get you two chuffs per revolution. You can either live with that (okay, but purists will notice), program the Phoenix to double the chuffs (good, but gets a little wonky if you're doing a lot of switching), or modify the cam with some styrene and magnets of your own to get 4 chuffs per revolution (best) If there's no cam, or you just want a simpler install, you can use three magnets on the tender wheels spaced 120 degrees apart and get pretty close to 4 chuffs per revolution on the drivers. It won't be perfectly synched, but close enough for most.

Later,

K


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

NIce install, how do you recharge the onboard battery, a socket under the tender or does the battery have to come out? Once I seal it up, I dont want to have to mess with it beyond plugging in the charger jack when needed. I am split between Airwire and Crest TE. My friend just got the TE system put in a Bachmann connie, along with Phoenix sound, but that is the normal set up from the old Watts Train shop, now Zionsville Train Depot. The battery is in a trailing car. I also have a C16 to do this with. Also, what kind of run times between recharges do you see? Thanks Mike


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Most of dad's and my installations are set so the tender shell or coal load can be lifted off to simply swap out the battery when it goes flat. It's easy enough to put a charging jack on the floor of the tender, though. Use a DPDT switch for the power. The battery leads go to the center terminals. The battery charge jack gets wired to one side, the electronics to the other. Whenever the power is turned off, the battery is connected to the charging jack so you can charge the battery. 

Later,

K


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

So Kevin, looking at the pic...any reason why 2 batteries could not be stacked? In the space shown.
It appears this would not interfer with the tender or coal or wood load....

Simple way to double run times....
Dirk


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Waiting on my Harz 2-6-2t with sound to sell over on evilbay so I can buy a mogul. Hoping to get one of the fancy versions with the copper piping, beartrap spark arrestor and snowplow. Whether the sound works or not is no worry since I will probably dump the LGB stuff and put aftermarket in it. Espicaly since thier electronics do not like PWM power and I dont think there is an easy way around that on battery power.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Dirk, none at all, though instead of installing two separate packs, I'd just buy one 5200mAh pack and use that. Definitely if doing this as a permanent installation, use the higher-capacity packs if they'll fit. 

Since ours are removable, though, it's just as easy (and cheaper) to keep a half dozen 2200 - 2600 mAh packs on hand. We still get between 2 - 3 hours, sometimes more with those, so it's no big deal to stop at a water tower to "refuel." 

Later,

K


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Mike, since LGB gets the chuff from the rear axle, just put battery power straight to the sound board, and only the motor gets pulse power.
Sound from the digital boards in LGB moguls is awesome.


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

That I do know Dan, my Harz engine I am trying to sell has the digital LGB sound and it is awsome. Have to see which mogul I end up with. If anybody is hunting one of the later run LGB 2-6-2T's with sound, its over on evilbay. Would really like to see if off to a new home. Not a 1st class member here or it would be listed in the classifieds. Mike


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## K27_463 (Jan 2, 2008)

Lots of partial and missing info here. I realize the OP is new here, but to answer your question , yes, easily, I have probably converted more than 75 - 100 of them in the last 26 years. All onboard, no trail car. . Now Since the LGB mogul uses a hall effect sensor for the chuff trigger, it is not directly compatible with aftermarket sound such as Phoenix, unless you fore go a trigger and run auto chuff. Or , you can build some alternate electronics to use the hall signal , jumping through some hoops on the way. One of the benefits of Battery r/c is real time control over sound effects. if hooked up the way Dan suggested, not only will you not get synced chuff, you will have limited real time control, as teh sound functions are preprogrammed on LGB boards, especially the older Moguls. The newer digital ones have some enhanced features, but still not as many sound effects as a good aftermarket unit.

Finally, Although you will always find folks that will tell you yes, you can stack smaller batteries in parallel, there are very good technical reasons why every major battery pack builder says no, and recommends you NOT do this. 
If you are running 14.8 volts and want more run time than 2600 mah will provide, you can either fit a 14.8 5200 as K suggested, or you can fit 2 7.4 v 5200 packs in Series. You cannot fit 2 14.8 2600 in parallel. Once again, you will find folks that say they have done it. Their experience base is one or two locos at best, not more than hundreds or thousands. 
if you want to retain the LGB electronics, your options are limited, LGB purposely made things quite proprietary. if you want to install all new, then yes, you can easily achieve superior performance and control with no track cleaning ever. 

Jonathan
www.rctrains, 
over 25 years of battery r/c in the garden


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## Michael Glavin (Jan 2, 2009)

I have my Mogul with Vanderbilt tender set-up with 2200mAh 6 cell 21.6v Li-Ion cells. Not sure the Mogul will run well on 14.8v might be a bit slow others may have more info therein. 

Michael


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Here is what is going into the mogul, which is a 2119d bumblebee. Locolinc reciever, Soundlinc sound card and 2 7.2vt 5000mah NiMH batteries in series to get 14.4vdc. My layout is small, 12 foot by 15 foot roughly square. So slow speed running is ok. I will also be doing a 1st generation Aristo C16 but without sound. Neither will have smoke units hooked up as I dont use them so I am not going to waste battery power running them. The battery choice is because thats what I have on hand that can be shared with my RC cars. 1 of those 5000mah batteries will run the C16 at a slow yard speed for 6+hours, anything over 4 hours I am happy with. Even sound isnt high on the list, but as I am getting a soundlinc as part of a box of Locolinc gear, I will use it. Thanks for the info Johathon, while I am not exactly new here, actualy putting RC into a G scale engine is new to me. I have run and raced Team Associated RC10 buggies in the past. So not totaly green when it comes to RC. The mogul I ended up with has no sound, just the lighting boards which will remain stock. I think the 14.4vt set up with twin batteries in series will give me decent run times. Just have to mod the coal load to be removable so I can pull the batteries to recharge. Cheers Mike


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

Which voltage is best depends on how you intend to wire the LGB Mogul.
If you intend to power the whole loco, including the stock LGB lights and smoke etc from the ESC output then, yes, 21.6 volts would OK if a just a tad high.
If you intend to separate the motor from the LGB wiring and power the motor only from the output of the ESC then 14.4 volts is more than adequate.


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Thanks Tony, I will try it each way and see which way works best for me. Should have the mogul in my hands sometime next week. Mike


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

Here is a short video(click on the picture to link to it) of the 2119d running under battery power with locolinc control. Couldnt get the soundlinc to respond so I removed it for now. Battery for the moment is a 7 cell RC car battery that I restacked to fit in the tender. She is running at full power, which is a tad slow but good enough till I can afford a new charger to deal with charging a pair of 7.2 packs in series creating one battery. My charger that I have will only charge up to 8 cells, I did try to charge the twin pack set up and it wouldnt activate the charge circuit. I have a jack in the floor of the tender, along with a DPDT center off toggle to select run/off/charge. If anybody has a better idea for the battery, I am all ears if its cheap. I used exhisting holes in the floor for the jack(right behind the front truck bolster) and the toggle) off to one side where the factory sound knob would be. Right now I am going for a full charge to almost dead run. Started at 12:10pm. Lasted just over one hour, so I will have to go with the twin battery pack set up, one isnt enough. Cheers Mike


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## Mike Toney (Feb 25, 2009)

I made up a new harness with the twin battery packs, and that took care of the slow running and short duration. Still playing around with resistors to get the headlight working. No resistor was ok with a single 7.2 pack, with twins the lowest Ohm resistor I have is still to much, light is very dim. I dont have a LED at the moment to use, it would probably be perfect. Man its nice to not worry about how clean the track is, or if the rail joiners are going to loose contact again requiring rework and reballest! Thanks for all the Help, and Tony was right, bypassing/removing the LGB electronics made a huge differance in how it ran on battery. Thanks again. Mike


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## The Tinker (Sep 11, 2014)

I have just converted a Lgb Mogul to battery and RC. I used a crest 22volt battery to power loco, Revolution RC, have managed to get cab lights, sound, smoke, head lights and fire box lights working. Receiver board fitted in the same place as original board, used original tender plug to feed battery power to loco and sound to speaker. And if layout has track power turned on I can have smoke unit turned on. A very easy loco to convert.


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