Battery charging advice please

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Andrew
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Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 11:48 am

Hello all,

As readers of my railway thread may recall, last time I went to run my RH Little John I found that I (well, possibly the children...) had left both loco and transmitter switched on and so the batteries had drained.

Yesterday I tried to rectify things, but found the loco wouldn't charge - I had read that the RH Smart Charger should be able to deal with completely drained cells, but seemingly not in this instance.

Unless anyone has a better idea I thought I'd give my trickle charger a try, but I'm unsure which setting to use. There's a dial to turn which offers options from 50 to 300mA (50, 80, 120, 180, 240, 300), but the batteries in the loco say they're 2300 mAh.

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Many thanks,

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Busted Bricks » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:15 pm

300mA will OK with a 2300mAh cell.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:18 pm

Brilliant, thank you!

I've previously been advised to give it 24 hours - does that sound OK?

Off to plug it in now...

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:19 pm

Hi Andrew,

The mA rating on the dial is the charge rate.

The higher the rate the faster the battery will reach full charge, however, will reduce the life of the battery the faster you charge it.

I would set it to 300 but bear in mind the trickle charger you have may not be able to recover a 'dead' battery so you may need to use a standard charger first to get some power into it.

Tom

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:23 pm

Thanks Tom,

I tried the RH charge yesterday, without success, so let's hope this one will do something useful...

I'm weathering wagons at the moment and would like to give 'em a trundle round the garden over the weekend!

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:28 pm

I take it you are still off work then, lucky you.

Let us know how you get on.

Tom

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:40 pm

Yep, back to work on Monday - my colleagues are back today, but it's my birthday, so I've treated myself to another day off...

And yes, I'll let you know how it goes. There's no light or whatever on either the loco or the charger to indicate when it's done, so if anyone's go any thoughts on that I'd be grateful - it would be better if I didn't fry anything or burn the house down...

Cheers,

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:20 pm

Do you mean the charger has no indicator light or that the light is not on?

My charger lights red when charging and green when it switches to trickle charge. If the light does not turn on it is either not charging (wiring fault or the power switch on the loco is not off) or it has detected a fault and shuts off.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:58 pm

Hello!

It's got a red light on currently, but as far as I can see that just indicates it's plugged in to the mains, not anything to do with the charging status. I've not used it for a couple of years, so can't recall if that changes to green when it's charged, or if the method of charging changes - I'd guess not...

I've got two Axtronics smart chargers of the type supplied by RH and tried both yesterday. They have both red and green lights (they flashed briefly when I plugged them in) but neither light lit up on either charger - my conclusion was that the battery was too far gone, but maybe there's something more serious wrong?

Perhaps I'll give the current charger another couple of hours then give it a test to see if anything's gone in...

Cheers,

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:15 pm

The Roundhouse 'Little John' manual states:

It will initially take approximately 5 hours for the batteries to fully charge.

The time taken for subsequent full charges may be less.
When the batteries are fully charged, the LED will change to green.

The charging jack should now be removed from the locomotive and the charger unplugged from the mains.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:19 pm

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:15 pm The Roundhouse 'Little John' manual states:


When the batteries are fully charged, the LED will change to green.

I wasn't sure if that meant changing from red to green, or from nothing to green!

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:32 pm

If you turn on the charger supplied without a battery connected what colour does the LED show?

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:20 pm

Hi Tom,

Sorry for the delay, was out and about.

Just tested it, and the RH charger doesn't light up at all when there's no battery connected.

Tested the loco too, and after 5 hours the trickle charger seems to have had no effect - it still won't move...

Cheers,

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:07 pm

Can you get to battery and remove it from the loco and then charge it directly to eliminate the loco being the issue?

Alternatively, The Roundhouse 'LocoGlyde' ESC will operate between 6.0V to 14.4V so if you can get or make up a temporary battery pack and connect it (making sure the original battery is disconnected) then you will know the loco works.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:23 pm

No, I don't think so - the battery pack's soldered into the loco's wiring...

It's a shame electricity's invisible (?!!), I've got no idea what's going on. Feels more like religion than science...

In future I may revert to using wooden locomotives powered by pulling on a piece of string!

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Dasher » Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:33 pm

I see that Strikalite have them on their site but you will need to determine whether it is a MkI or MkII LJ as the voltages are different.

My Harlech Castle has played up from new - and it has only recently been suggested to me that it may be faulty. Mine will charge and change from red to green - but not be fully charged. If I unplug, replug and continue then it goes back to red. I can do this three or four times before it remains green. I'm no electronics expert but it is as if some cells charge on the first pass, others on then , etc..
If your pack is showing dead to the charger dead then one way of resurrecting it is to connect its to a fully charged NiMH battery of equivalent value (i.e.2300) directly to it. This can often break any short due to chemical crystal formation that can occur with NiMH batteries. I've done this successfully with bike light batteries - it sticks enough charge in the pack (not much is required) for the charger to then recognise the pack as 'undead'.
NOTE: - DO NOT DO THIS WITH A LIPO BATTERY.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by GTB » Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:42 am

Andrew wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:23 pm It's a shame electricity's invisible (?!!), I've got no idea what's going on. Feels more like religion than science...
That's why they make digital multimeters (DMMs). Using a suitable voltage scale and taking a reading on the battery connection will tell you if a battery is charged or not and confirm that the charger is actually doing something.

Check the charger manual to find out what the coloured lights mean. It may be trying to tell you it can't work out what, if anything, is connected to it and so it can't start the charging process. In which case a dumb wall wart type charger might do the job if you have one with the right voltage and current rating, plus the right adaptor plug.

All the TVT rc controlled locos and the manual speed control railmotors have headlights controlled by the power switch. The RCS transmitters also have prominent red lights in the on-off switch. The chief engineer has a memory like a sieve and got tired of replacing dead battery packs.......... :roll:

If electrickery no longer appeals, there's always clockwork........

Graeme

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by Andrew » Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:26 pm

Thanks for the ideas chaps - including clockwork propulsion!

However I end up getting out of this particular mess I need to learn some lessons I think - like not draining batteries, and perhaps some sort of organised charging regime...

In the meantime, my steam-powered, manually operated Regner struggles on (and might see service tomorrow), so we're not in the realms of a motive power crisis just yet!

Andrew.

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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:58 pm

If you could remove and dismantle the battery pack, it might be possible to revive some or all the cells.


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Re: Battery charging advice please

Post by FWLR » Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:16 am

Great video has usual Rik. That EBL charger you have looks to be better than mine. I have two, one won't change from RED at all, no matter how long I have them charging for. Also I have to put two in for them to light up the red charging lights. If there is only one in, nothing happens.

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