Large Scale Central

Dead Battery?

Electronics Power and Sound
#1

I have a Tenergy Li-Ion 18650 14.8V 2200mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack w/ PCB Protection in an engine with the RailBoss 4 R/C. The battery is about one year old and while running the engine just stopped, no lights, no nothing. I plugged in the TLP-4000 Smart Charger and the top green led lights for about 2 seconds and then goes off (the Full and Charge lights remain off). This condition is not described in the charger’s > manual <.

The charger works fine on other engines. I am not too excited about the prospect to extract the battery and replace it.

Any suggestions of what to try?

Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

#2

Is it the square pack or the flat pack?

#3

It’s “flat” four cells next to each other.

I’ve done nothing yet such as checking the voltage since I would need to disassemble the engine to get to the battery. If I went that far, I could just swap the battery with another one. I confess that I’m being a bit lazy (must be all the turkey and such) and was hoping those with more experience could say something like “well if the charger light goes out after two seconds then your battery pack is fried”.

Thanks

#4

I use the same packs. It’s not necessarily fried, but definitely in need of some help you can’t give it inside the loco or with a simple charger.

Stopping completely (no motor, no lights etc.) is normal operation of the protection PCB when the pack reaches it’s lowest voltage limit. But the charger’s reaction is not normal. There could be one of several things wrong, but you can’t diagnose it without getting the pack out and probably cutting it apart.

I have had the protection PCB fail and need to be replaced on these packs at about the same age. Without some diagnostics I can’t say if that is your issue.

#5

John:

Thanks for the response. I also asked this question on the MLS forum and have a bunch of things to try. Unfortunately most of them entail disassembly. Ah well, it’s a hobby!

Mark