I have a USAT GP9 with an Aiirwire G3 Drop in, and a 14.x volt 5.6 amp battery purchased from Jonathan Belesie, just before he pulled the plug and retired. Yesterday, our club set up some track at the local garden club’s annual show, to entertain the men, while mom goes shopping.

My jeep was pulling a train of 8 Aristo and USAT boxcars, and a USAT extended vision caboose on flat track, at roughly 25 smph. I started at 0730, and ran continuously until 1500, 7 and a half hours. I did not run the battery out. Not too shabby, says I.

Steve,

Impressive! Can you elaborate further on the battery you used? What is it’s chemistry? What is the exact voltage? When you state 5.6 amps, are you really sure you are not referring to 5.6 ah (ampere hours)? Inquiring minds want to know! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Joe, it is a Lithium Ion 5.6 amp hour battery. Don’t know who made it, it’s been installed for a couple of years, and I don’t want to open up the geep to look.

Steve, I have the same type battery (5.6mah) in my K-27 and I’ve had it running at Fred’s all weekend without charging it. Now, granted it didn’t run continuously for 2 days, but it got it’s share of run time. The battery is from Cordless Renovations.

Hi Guys, when Cordless Renovation choose to exit the business we needed to find a new supplier. Lucky for all of as we found MTO Battery of York, PA. Jason the owner introduced us to the next generation cells and Protective circuit module. His business does lot with the Navy as a supplier of battery packs to submarines. With a higher standard of assembly and performance we can offer the best quality packs.

Today we use Panasonic and LG Chemical select lithium cells that are higher rated. You start at 3.4Ah then add more cells to reach 6.8Ah or 10.2AH. The packs come in 11.1v, 14.8v and 18.5V. We have made over 20 different styles.

To predict runtime you need to know what the current draw of the loco/train is. Then divide into the rating of the battery pack. Trains draws 2 amps, battery is 3.4 amps runtime is 1.7 hours. As Steve stated runtime can be longer if you are just cruising along which is a slow discharge rate.

Safety is first then runtime. The PCM we use provides four functions.

1. Short protection. You can touch the red and black wires and the pack will turn off until you clear the short. (Military spec)

2. Preserve the pack for up to 12 months between charges.

3. Over discharge protection. PCM will shut off pack if you exceed its rating pulling a train. PCM will shut off pack when voltage in pack is too low.

4. Over charge protection. PCM monitors charging to smart charger.

Don

Don Sweet said:

Hi Guys, when Cordless Renovation choose to exit the business we needed to find a new supplier. Lucky for all of as we found MTO Battery of York, PA. Jason the owner introduced us to the next generation cells and Protective circuit module. His business does lot with the Navy as a supplier of battery packs to submarines. With a higher standard of assembly and performance we can offer the best quality packs.

Today we use Panasonic and LG Chemical select lithium cells that are higher rated. You start at 3.4Ah then add more cells to reach 6.8Ah or 10.2AH. The packs come in 11.1v, 14.8v and 18.5V. We have made over 20 different styles.

To predict runtime you need to know what the current draw of the loco/train is. Then divide into the rating of the battery pack. Trains draws 2 amps, battery is 3.4 amps runtime is 1.7 hours. As Steve stated runtime can be longer if you are just cruising along which is a slow discharge rate.

Safety is first then runtime. The PCM we use provides four functions.

1. Short protection. You can touch the red and black wires and the pack will turn off until you clear the short. (Military spec)

2. Preserve the pack for up to 12 months between charges.

3. Over discharge protection. PCM will shut off pack if you exceed its rating pulling a train. PCM will shut off pack when voltage in pack is too low.

4. Over charge protection. PCM monitors charging to smart charger.

Don

Good Batteries, I have 3 of them in operation now.

Rick

I have two of them (MTO that Don sells) operating my 2 SD 45s. I haven’t put them to an endurance test, yet, but so far, I am very pleased.