Many of you use our Battery Conversion Modules to charge your battery pack in place, in the train. There may be occasions when you need to charge one or more packs on the bench. Perhaps you will need to battery swap during an exceptionally long operating session or open house.
   We use a charging cable adapter in-house for that purpose, and it occurred to us that many of your may have the same need.

Standardize your battery connections using our Battery Connectors. We always put the male connector on the battery and the female on the Battery Conversion Module battery input. To charge on the bench, plug your charger into the jack on the adapter cable, and the battery pack into the other end.

This new product will drastically reduce the effort involved in mounting two reed switches under a truck (or anywhere else) to trigger your bell and whistle. Check it out !
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Here's how we used the prototype ...

This semi-automated controller is used by many for Back 'n Forth Trolley operations. (The only one of its kind for battery power, that we know of anyway). To make the control flexible for all users, one track magnet would cause an automated station stop, and two magnets in a row would cause a change of direction after the stop.

We have now added a user programmable option to run Back 'n Forth Trolleys, with no intermediate station stops, using just one track magnet at each end of the track.

And you can still trigger sounds via a switch contact or just loop the sound clip continuously if you like.

Now, yet another way to activate your Sound Clip Module. Keep it quite until a visitor approaches your scene. We now have a little motion detector, only 1/2" in diameter, that can be hidden behind a building window, or mounted wherever convenient.

And you can still trigger the sound via switch contact or loop it continuously if you like.

Build your own Track Odometer car with our new Track Odometer assembly. Finally, answer the question of "How many feet of track do you have?". A reed switch triggered by magnets on the wheel of a car counts pulses to indicate feet traveled on the on-board display. Reset it to zero using the reset button, send it around the mainline, and read out the result! A built-in calibration routine allows you to install this tool on any car with any wheel diameter.

See my article in October 2018 Garden Railways Magazine.

We use track magnets to trigger our sound boards and do automated station stops. Until now, there were only two options to acquire track magnets (that I know of); PIKO makes some nice ones, but they are pretty pricey, or make your own. You can simply glue a magnet to a track tie, but what if you need to move it? I've made my own for years with a piece of styrene and magnet that slips under the rails, but they tended to move around, either triggering the wrong sound, or hitting wheels.
   Here is a lower cost alternative that works great and is easy to use. It locks into position, so the magnet is always perfectly located, yet it is easy to remove and turn around or move it to a new location. Che ck it out ...

  This little board will make your building come to life by turning lights in each room on/off at random to indicate activity. It can control 12V LED strips, individual LEDs, or Sound Clip Modules.  LSCM
   Arduino users will recognize the control board, and will be able to create their own custom programs, if desired.