Large Scale Central

Is there any saving this Tenergy Battery?

I have had this battery in my Goose #6 for some time. every time i went to charge it with the^Tenergy charger the light always showed green. yesterdays attempt at charging failed and i read zero volts across the leads. this sounds like an internal short. but this is the only battery pack of this type i have. of course this is sized for the box that hides it. the other thing i am seeing is that newer packs have additional leads that go to?

Al P.

Al, your battery says “with PCB” which means it has a BMS board in it: Battery Management System. That prevents the battery being over or undercharged, and a few other useful things. The ‘newer’ packs are probably for racing cars, where they charge each individual cell to make sure they are at peak efficiency. Trains don’t care.

I suspect something in your battery died. One of the cells failed, or maybe the PCB. I don’t know any way to resurrect them.

Don Sweet sells MTO Batteries. They have many shapes and sizes, perhaps one will fit your application. I have had excellent luck with them. They are Li Ion nit Li Poly, so the charger/routine may be a bit different. If that were a Li Ion pack you might be able to disassemble and find a bad cell that could be replaced, but I wouldn’t mess with a Li Poly battery.

One thing that those of us that have multiple battery locomotives may forget to do is to regularly charge them even if they haven’t been used. Lithium batteries hold their charge a long time, but they do self-discharge. If they discharge too far, they fail. Having a monthly or bi-monthly routine of charging everything will extend the lifetime.

Yesterday, in the nothing ventured/nothing gained mode, i disassembled the pack and removed the pcb from the circuit, and charged. at first i though i was having no effect. later the same day i discovered one of the probes on my multi meter broken, and upon repair checked the pack again, and sure enough i had no load the 11 volts the pack was rated for. I looked today at my LHS which does a lot of rc for some supplies to repackage the battery, but came home empty handed. i will reinstall the pcb, and see if i can top off the charge.

Al P.

I don’t charge them that often. I charge my NiMH batteries (used for r/c 6V supplies in my live steamers) every 6 months. [I move them between homes summer-winter so they get charged once a season.] Haven’t lost one yet.

Lithiums are fine for at least a year. After Hurricane Ian, many of my battery-powered locos had to be abandoned in FL for almost 3 years. Most of them worked when I started checking them and all are now recharged.

I do not recommend charging without the PCB. :flushed: :wink:

I reinstalled the pcb, and was able to fully charge the pack. dosnt look very pretty but is functional.

will try to do a spring track inspection this w/e with goose #6

AL P.