Somehow, I always think of you as “The TOC,” which is redundant since TOC is “The Old Curmudgeon.”
I’m looking at a loco I think you wired. A cute little shay with NiCad batterys and sound. The sound is great. The owner’s complaint is he can’t charge the batteries. I can’t find anything wrong with the loco or the batteries, in fact, I’ve been running it, but I think his charger has gone naf. I was monitoring the voltage as it was charging and it ran the 14.4v battery up to 16 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21… Hey, isn’t it supposed to say “Charged” at 18.6 or so?
The charger is a CR1 smart charger from Cordless Rennovations. He had the dip switch set to 2 : 18.5v Lithium. I changed it to 8 : 14.4v NiCad. The owner says he always used 5 : 7.2v NiCad. I might have found the problem.
The battery has been lighting my tail light bulb at about half an amp for an hour now and is down to 14.5v. I thought I’d drain it and then put it back on the charger and watch closely.
Battery, charge plug and switches all mounted neatly in the tender:
