My Personal Experience with DIY Lithium Ion Battery Packs 2006 to 2012

[Kevin Strong]

Bill, you missed your chance to paint the shed while testing the batteries. That way, you could watch paint dry, grass grow, AND batteries run down. 

Seriously, cool test, and thanks for posting the results.

Later,

K

(And I can't remember if I responded to your e-mail. I know I started writing, but can't remember if I hit send. I'll check tonight when I get home.)

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Hi guys,

You are all welcome and thanks for the kind remarks. I saw many other Hong Kong batteries from advertized from 2800 mAh to 4200 mah and got tempted to try some of them, but the sellers when questioned claimed they did not have the PCB protection. Since I could not see the writing on the cell covers in the pictures, I had to assume (dangerous word) they were correct, but I am convinced from many of the responses they really don't know what they have. There were some really cheap 3800 mah cells the seller said did not have protection and I almost bought them just to see if he was right, but in the end kept it to just the GTL's. 

I do remain convinced that higher power Lithium Ion batteries will come along because of the world's hunger for portable or remote electronic devices, so I will keep my eyes open.  All-battery.com does sell an LG Chem brand 2800 mah battery and a careful look at the detailed spec indicated it does have protection, but at $9.95 apiece I decided not to try them either. 

Kevin,  I did get a lot of my other equipment serviced, and also got a lot of reading done, but the thing that really got to me was the constant chug chug and the need to check the lap times !!  I kept the sound on because most run with sound and because it was a good way to tell if something was changing or stopping.  I will also look forward to getting the email from you.

Bill

[rslater]

Hi Bill - Rodney

I received my GTL batteries today.  All except one was within acceptable voltage - 3.79 to 4.10.  The one battery was at 0.993 Volts.

I have to wait for my battery holders.  My Cordless Renovations charger will only charge 7.4 & up.  I will attempt to charge the two lowest when the boxes arrive before I contact the seller.

Any other suggestions?  Or wait and see.

Rick

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Rodney,
That is pretty low, I would contact them and let them know right away there may be a problem unless you expect the holders in a day or two.  You could try taping them nose to tail and taping the charger leads to the ends.  Works in a pinch especially if you don't expect the holders for awhile.  Hard to keep things tight, but doable. Ask me how I know .

Bill

[chuckger]

Hi Bill, Rodney,
   I'm going battery power and was told before to use sub c batteries for the K27 to get decent run time. Has anyone tried the smaller packs with a K?? If So how long of a run time did you get??

  Thanks Chuck

[rslater]

Bill,

I took your suggestion and taped the batteries together. The 0.993v battery did charge to 4.1v but the other stayed right at 3.79v, no change.  I will try again when the holders arrive.  I suppose at 3.79v the battery is still ok.

Rick

[Kevin Strong]

   I'm going battery power and was told before to use sub c batteries for the K27 to get decent run time. Has anyone tried the smaller packs with a K?? If So how long of a run time did you get??

I get between 3 and 4 hours continuous running with a 2600mAh, 14.8 Li-Ion pack in my K-27. That's pulling 10 cars at public displays where there is virtually no grade. The K's tender is cavernous, so if you need longer run times, you can easily fit the 5200 or 7800 mAh (or thereabouts) packs inside. They're more expensive, obviously, but for upwards of 12 hours run time on a single charge? If you run for long periods of time, it's worth it. Most of my tender shells are removable, so I just swap out the 2600mAh pack when it goes flat if I want to run longer. (I generally only run my K at shows, so after 3 - 4 hours, it's high time to let someone else have the track anyway.)

Later,

K

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Rick, Glad to hear it charged up ok.  As for the 3.79 battery try running it down first then recharging it.  Some times when my batteries are used for a very short time and show in that range, the smart charger or PCB seems to think it is still charged enough and doesn't kick in and charge it higher.  


Kevin, That is impressive runtime for a K27 pulling ten cars.  What voltage/speed level do you use?

Chuck,  You can use two 14.8 volt 2600 mAh packs in parallel as Kevin suggests.  If like me you do not run continuously you should get more runtime than you will,ever need in most typical sessions.   Like Kevin I make my coal loads removable so I can clip in another fresh battery in less than 30 seconds.  You will not regret going battery!!

Bill

[Tony Walsham]

Chuck,  You can use two 14.8 volt 2600 mAh packs in series as Kevin suggests.  If like me you do not run continuously you should get more runtime than you will,ever need in most typical sessions.   Bill

2 x 14.8 volt batteries in series will = 29.6 volts, which is a bit on the high side.  Surely you mean in parallel?

[R and K RR Products]

   Chuck
  I have Cordless Renovations CR1705 (18 volt 5600ma) in 2 of my K-27 and have only ran 1 of the batteries till it stopped. It was the day I had my layout running all day for the National Convention tour and I would guess that I got about 6 hours out of it pulling 15 AMS cars pulling 2% grades with Airwire throttle set at about 50%.

Like Kevin and Bill said, you could just switch out the battery packs.

Rodney
 

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Thanks Tony, correction made!!  Parallel it is!  Brain was not functioning

[Kevin Strong]

Kevin, That is impressive runtime for a K27 pulling ten cars.  What voltage/speed level do you use?

14.8 volts, running at probably 70% throttle. I've got one of Rodney's reduction gearheads installed. I got comparable times with the stock gearbox. The throttle setting was around 45% for the same speed. I'd imagine the current draw was probably a bit higher, but I never measured it to compare. Again, this is also on nominally flat public displays with 10' radius curves. The 10 cars offer a fair amount of drag in their own right, but the track didn't add anything to it.

Later,

K

[chuckger]

Hi Guys'
  Thanks for the info, very helpful. I am definatly going battery, I have 200ft of lagas code 215 alluminum track, and I just got a Kobota TLB BX for my birthday. So one of these days I will get trains running.
  I will send an order out for some battery boxes and some batteries shortly.

  Thanks again, Chuck

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Wouldn't it be great if Large Scale locomotive manufacturers designed their new issue locomotives with battery in mind.  By that I mean make steamers so that tenders or coal loads or even boiler tops are easily removable to allow for battery pack changes from the top.  If the diesels were designed with removable top hatches batteries could be loaded from the top as well.   While it might not be practical for very small locos it would still be nice to see in most others.

A factory installed switch to change from track power to battery and a connector in the tender or diesel body to allow battery pack changes would top things off nicely.  Even a snap on diesel fuel tank or coal load designed as a battery holder for 18650 batteries would be cool.

All my steamers are modified to allow top changes. Since I don't use smoke I modified a U25B Diesel exhaust stack to allow a battery pack to be put in through the top, it is so simple to change out the batteries in it now.  My other diesels all have their battery packs built in requiring pulling the loco from service to recharge them.  I usually put them in the fuel tank so that I can access them

Yes I run diesels too.  My indoor layout is steam era and my outdoor layout is early diesel era to 1966.

[R and K RR Products]

 Well I have 2 batteries out of 36 that will not charge. Sent a e-mail to the supplier and they are going to replace them. I tried to charge them on both chargers, so I don't think it the charger but I went ahead and ordered 2, 5 cell smart chargers from All-Battery and will see if they will charge them. I received the battery boxes yesterday and will start building some packs this weekend.


  Bill
The Bachmann K-27 was designed with everything you ask for and I have a new shay that I've been told that is this way also.(never had it out of the box yet)


Rodney