I packed up my locomotives for the move some time in March of last year. The ones that have permanently installed batteries have not been charged since I packed them up. I had planned to get them unpacked and charged before the 6 month mark, but that didn’t happen due to other priorities.
Today was the day!
I use the higher end Tenergy chargers that can be programmed and give real time indication of how much current is being drawn, current battery voltage, and units of current delivered. All but one charged until “FULL” status was indicated. My 2 truck Shay which was one of my earliest conversions disconnects itself before the charger thinks its full. I assume this is the on board PCB shutting down the charge before it is truly full. RailPro indicates a nearly full battery, so I think I’m good. When I get time I will unpack it again and check with a meter.
All three of my C-19s use removable packs. I charged the packs back in September before and after TrainOps at Bob’s. I’ll top them all off again today just because! I have one that has been refusing to charge with the smart charger with a “LOW VOLTAGE” error. It’s been doing this for at least a year. The trick to charging this one is to use a dumb charger with only a voltage switch and red/green LEDS. When it indicates full with the green LED I move it to the smart charger which indicates just over 10 volts at the start of the 16.8 volt charge. I assume this one has a weak cell and would probably benefit from a balance charge. That requires disassembly, so for now this one is just a backup.
While I’m at it I’ll top off my RailPro controllers. They use NiMh batteries which self discharge much faster than the Lithium batteries.
Initially I thought I would keep them all unboxed and move them to the shop, but I’m not done making sawdust and there isn’t a good place to store them yet.
Since you all love pictures so much, here is M-10 taking some fuel…
