What it means is that the charger doesn’t see a complete circuit - there’s a break somewhere. (My pals charger kept doing that on his batteries. My charger worked fine to charge the same ones.)
All I can suggest is check that your Nicad battery pack is showing 6V or so on your meter. After that, make sure your charger will charge something, like another battery pack.
The battery pack is brand new. I am trying to charge it up for the first time. I think I am checking the battery pack correctly with my multimeter. It is showing -0.02 which i assume means the battery is totally discharged.
The battery pack I am trying to charge is this one. I set the Imax B6AC to NiCad 6V.
Try recycling, by toggling the power switch. Has worked for me.
The power switch? On the charger? There is no power switch.
I think this is your problem. A discharged NiCd battery is about 1.0V, and the pack should register 6V ish on the meter when discharged. 0V is an open circuit, or, as the IMax thinks, a broken connection somewhere.
If it’s new, I’d contact the vendor.
cheers
N
The outlet it’s plugged into
Could the battery be fully charged already? “Connection break” indicates the charger has lost electrical connection to the cells in the pack. Could be that the BMS is shutting it down because it’s already full. Other possibilities include bad connectors.
Your charger should have discharge mode. Try that and then try charging again.
I tried Discharge Mode and again it says CONNECTION BREAK.
Timmy,
I don’t know where you got that battery pack, but 2 things strike me. We haven’t used NiCad batteries for 20 years, and the Phoenix sound system with the lead-acid battery is even older than that.
NiCads die. If it really is 20 years old, it is probably Kaput.
P.S. Phoenix recommend a 6-9V NiMH battery for the Big Sound 97, which they say their board will charge (I was reading the manual recently!) Have you checked what your manual says?
I don’t have a manual for it. Dave Goodson installed the Soundtraxx sound card probably about 16 - 18 years ago. The battery he installed was a PowerSonic Model PS-605WL 6 Volt 0.5 Amp. HR which has died. I did a search on that battery and found a replacement for it at Batteryplex.com. The person I conversed with regarding the replacement battery is Randy at BatteryPlex.com He confirmed that the 6 Volt 350 Mah Replacement PS-605 is what he sells as the replacement for the PowerSonic. He said that the charger that I had been using for the now dead PowerSonic should still work with the new replacement. He said that others that have purchased the replacement battery pack all use their same chargers. I could not charge it with the original charger. I have been in communication with Dave recently and he also said that old charger should work. I had already ordered the Imax B6AC and when it came I tried charging the new battery pack with that as mentioned in this thread. But it seems no luck.
Timmy, Google is your friend.
Phoenix have manuals posted on their website for your convenience.
Sounds like it is dead. I’d send it back to Randy at Batteryplex - he probably had it on the shelf for 20 years. Even Phoenix says to use NiMH in their older manuals! We gave up on Nicads once NiMH arrived. A 7.2V NiMH pack should work.
P.S. You can still get the Powersonic battery. They now have the 6310, 621, etc. Any of their 6V batteries will do.
https://www.power-sonic.com/product/ps-621/
Batteryplex has refunded my money. Yeah!
I took a look at the power sonic link you included. I see the 621 but do not see a 6310. The 621 appears to be quite larger than the previous PowerSonic battery that died and the replacement I got from BatteryPlex. Not sure it would fit in the coal bunker of the Heisler along with everything else in there.
Typo. I meant the 610. And yes, you’ll have to check the sizes carefully - none of the current PS ones are the same shape.
But do check the Phoenix manual to see if it says you can use a 7-9V NiMH instead!
I am aware that Google is your friend. That’s how I found the replacement battery from Battery Plex. With that said, my guess is that the model of the sound card must be underneath as there is nothing on the top that I can see saying what it is. The sound board is fixed pretty tightly in position and I don’t want to pull on it. I’ve contacted PowerSonic twice with zero reponse.
I did a search on 6Volt batteries and came up with the following from Amazon. Will any of these work?
Either will work, but make sure you use the right charger.
Both Soundtraxx Sierra and Phoenix used the 6V power-sonic batteries, so you could have either.
So, to be clear, either of the 4 batteries I listed will work. Is that correct?
I was planning on using the same charger I had been using for years on the now dead PowerSonic battery. If that won’t work with these batteries then i was planning on using the IMAX B6AC charger.
Timmy, I have not tried what you are doing and we don’t even know which sound card you have. (A major question, btw. Personally I would dig it out.) So I’m not guaranteeing anything will work. But buy batteries you can return if they don’t work.
NO you can’t use the same charger you used for the Power-sonic batteries!! That’s a lead-acid type, and these as NiMH. You MUST use a charger appropriate to the battery chemistry. Use the IMAX and set it to NiMH and the correct voltage.
And that raises another reason to dig out the sound card and find out what it is. Phoenix set up its cards to re-charge the Power-sonic as long as the track power was more than 7V or so. It is not clear they will charge an NiMH battery. The sound card might die in the process!! I doubt it will do any damage, as I told you my Phoenix manual says you can exchange the Power-sonic for an NiMH, but that is one specific model. Your Mileage May Vary.
Yes, the installed sound card is setup to re-charge the PowerSonic battery. It used to work great!
I got it working! I purchased one of the 6 volt battery packs I listed above from Amazon.
