Hi guys:

I’m looking for advice/experience with battery choice for a Bachmann C-19 battery/RC conversion. I run Li-ion 14.8V battery packs in my Climax and Shay conversions and was wondering if I should go with this again or maybe step up to the 18.5V battery pack. It’s a tight fit in the tender so I’ll probably have to stick with a 1x4, 1x5 or 2x2 battery pack configuration. Maybe I should mount the pack in an easily accessable area so I can swap it out if it dies on me during a meet.

Any thoughts?

I use a 14.8v 2200 mah Lion battery from Cordless Renovations, by way of RCSNE. (http://www.rcsofne.com/) 14.8v’s is plenty. Mine is situated at the back of the tender, since the speaker and the rest of the electronics is under the coal load. I have a charging jack on the back of the tender. But if you need to change it, 3 screws hold the tender body to the frame.

Thanks Ken. Did you remove the fan in the back of the tender?

Joe Bussing said:

Thanks Ken. Did you remove the fan in the back of the tender?

Yup, but I didn’t really have too. The battery fit between the speaker and the post that holds the tender shell on. …(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Same here; a 14.8v 2200 or 2600mAh Li-Ion pack. In my case, I want the battery to be removable so I can just swap it out with a fresh battery when it goes flat, so I just slide the battery towards the rear of the tender in the gap between the back of the coal load opening and the PC board. Works great, and I’ve gotten upwards of 4 hours out of a 2600mAh pack with pretty much continuous running.

One thing… if you’re going to be sliding your battery in and out through that opening, take some hot glue and secure the switches so you don’t accidentally bump them. I kept bumping the “motor on/off” switch, and wondering why the loco wouldn’t run after I swapped out the battery.

Later,

K

Kevin, are you using a 1x4 battery pack configuration? Ken, I assume you are using a 2x2 configuration?

Joe

Yes, a 1x4 configuration.

Later,

K

Joe Bussing said:

Kevin, are you using a 1x4 battery pack configuration? Ken, I assume you are using a 2x2 configuration?

Joe

I’m not sure what it is, but that sounds about right. It’s not one you can easily remove without taking the tender shell off.

Hi Kevin, for those of us that upgraded the speaker there is no space to slide the battery in and out. So I use our Battery install kit with the charge jack mounted on the rear panel so you can connect a back up battery from a trailer car for more run time. Don

If you’re running AirWire, you can use their plug-in decoder with an onboard charging jack.

I, too, just became the owner of a bouncing baby C19. Will be battery/RC converting it post-haste.

Alright Bob! I just bought the Airwire system last week at the 2016 National Garden Railway Convention from Raindeer Pass. They had a booth with representatives from Airwire so I could ask a bunch of questions. Now I just need to find time to install it. Using a Phonix P8 board and a 14.8V Li-Ion battery pack.

I have the Revo receiver and Phoenix board taken care of, I just need a battery that’ll fit.

Hi Bob, you can fit the CR-1600B 14.8v or CR-1700C 18.5v in the tender. You might have to remove 4-5 metal plates for the battery to seat in the rear.

I will be bringing my C-19 to OPS 2016.

Don

Excellent service from Don. He just stopped by with the battery and other assorted bits.

FYI, I just wanted to add my C-19 R/C battery conversion. I used a Railboss 4 receiver, a Phoenix sound card, and a Cordless Renovations 14.8v 3000 mah battery. I was able to fit all of this into the tender with no modifications to the tender itself. The first photo shows the fabricated brass brackets used to mount the battery and switches. Notice that I removed the fan.

The next photo shows how I mounted the Railboss card and the Phoenix card to opposites sides of the original fan bracket.

The last photo shows the completed installation. The white styrene shelf was attached to the two brass brackets shown above. This provided the support for mounting the battery and the fuse. I’m getting more than 3 hours running time on a charge.

Doc Watson

But you removed a fan. Was the fan really unnecessary?

David, let me say this. My layout is mostly in the sun. Temps can get so high that I can’t touch the track. I’m sure the temp inside the tender can be over 100 deg. I’ve never noticed any effect on the performance of the electronics. I seem to recall that the fan may only be essential if you are running DCC. Those units must put out more heat.

Doc

Nice and tidy, Doc

Where is the “ditch lite” trigger and will you be adding one in the future along with updating the horns to Nathan K-5s?