Engineer-Joe posted:I wonder what happens if the smoke is on? Must die sooner?
I taught our grandson about smoke. Now he won't run without it. I just need enough time to get across my dead #7 Atlas 2 rail frogs. The solution would be to figure out a minimum speed to make it with the keep alive and smoke on. I didn't have problems when I only had #5 switches. So I think I just need a minimum time addition out of this. Right now the trains are rocking as each engine stalls for a second.
Could you do a quick test with the smoke on? Even 2 or 3 seconds would be great.
Good question, I just tested this. Interestingly, with the smoke on, the engine stopped after about 3 seconds, despite plenty of charge remaining in the capacitor. So it's not a question of energy storage, although with smoke on it of course draws more.
We are probably hitting a limitation of the boost regulator in this case. It is rated for 2A input or output. Using my estimated power of 7.5W from the other thread, and adding a few watts for the smoke, we would be at 10+ W. Which, at 5V input, would be at or above the 2A limit of the regulator. It is thermal and overcurrent protected, so my guess is the thermal protection kicking in after a few seconds.
