I want to run a Bachmann Smoke unit (from the Indy Mogul 2-6-0) from a 3.7V 900 MaH Polymer Li-Ion battery.

My questions are:

1 - is 3.7 volts enough to run the Smoke unit?

2 - If Yes, Approximately how long would the smoke unit run on one charge?

Thanks

Most Bachmann largescale units I have seen are run on at least 12 volts (K27) or track power.

3.7 volts seems very low and the resistance of the K27 unit appears to be 56 ohms.

Even LGB used ‘5’ volt units (Seuthe 4.5 to 6 volt and ran them at 6 volts.

I am just wanting to power the smoke unit in a structure I am building, I was under the impression the smoke units only used 3 or 4 volts.

I guess I need to do more research.

Why don’t you just power it up on 3-4 volts and see?

A battery powered building?

The 5 volt LGB, Sueth, Vollmer units may work on voltages that low, but the Bachmann units probably wont work at all. I have a small Bachmann locomotive that I run at around 10 volts, because I run it with Heartland equipment, and they have 12 volt motors in them. At 10 volts, the little Bachmann locomotive doesn’t smoke more then a faint wisp from time to time.

Somewhere I thought I read the Bachmann smoke units run on 3 volts, since they run on 12 volts it should not be an issue. I will do some testing as suggested above, maybe i can get them to work with some old 7 volt RC battery packs I have laying around.

My fictitious (as in not built yet) layout is going to be all battery powered and I didn’t want to run electricity to the layout. So I thought I would run the smoke unit i’m going to re purpose as a smoking chimney in a building I am working on from a battery pack.