Large Scale Central

Power cutting off

I tried running my big john today using battery power and it ran for a little while. Then all of a sudden it just stopped. I checked the light on the critter control and it was off. I checked all of the wiring and everything looked fine. I then hooked up the battery to the charger and it charged with no problems. I turned the switch for the train and the critter control light turned back on. I plugged the train in turned the knob up. The train ran for a few seconds and then stopped. I came to the conclusion something is tripping the critter control but I dont know what. It does it to both engines. I have had the trains running before with no problems. I even rewired everything so their are no problems with the wiring. Im thinking it is the critter control. Does it sound like a bad control? Im starting to think I like track power much more. The only way to reset the control is if I plug the battery back into the chrger for a second and then switch back to the critter control.

Ok so I plugged the battery in the charger and let it charge fully (even though it was alreay) After about ten minutes it said full charge. (usually it takes 2 hours for a full charge) I plugged it into the train and it ran fine. I let it go for a while and no problems. My question is why did it do this. Could the battery have been low and the extra power running the engine caused it to shut down? Does anyone know what might have caused this?

Shawn said:
Does anyone know what might have caused this?
Your Mom? ;)

Sounds like the PCB on the battery pack. It’s supposed to shut down the battery when the voltage drops to the minimum safe value.

Unlike NiCd or NiMh batteries that will slowly die, LiIon batteries will just shut off.

Thanks Rooster your a big help LOL

Jon Thanks I thought that as well but the battery was fully charged (at least the charger said it was) I had it running for maybe ten minutes when it started to do it. I hooked the battery back up and after ten minutes the charger said it was fully charged. (it takes about 2 hours to fully charge) Since then it has worked. Going to play with it today and see what happens. I doubt the engine is sucking that much juice especially since I ran it for two hours before it slowed down.

Shawn:

You might try contacting Del Tapparo at G Scale Graphics. He is quick to help with any problems with his controllers, their installations or use.

His website information page is here:

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/DelTapparo/About_Us.htm

His email address is:

[email protected]

He also accepts phone calls from 9:00am to 9:00pm Mountain time, 7 days / week. The phone numbers are at the bottom of the information page.

Happy RRing,

Jerry

OK so took the big john out again. It ran about halfway around the loop and cut off again. I have another Lith battery im going to try. Could cold weather have an effect on the battery? The temps are in the 20’s. Not sure if that would effect it. If the new battery does this as well I could probably assume its the critter control. I did order a new one and they said to send the other one back and they will fix it. I also wonder if weather could be effecting the critter control. It ran inside last night a bunch of times with no problems.

I decide to test the critter control. I hooked up a starter set transformer. I hooked it up to the plug that goes from the critter control to the battery. Evreything worked fine. Im starting to think that, one: the battery does not do well in cold temps or two: the battery is not working properly.

I did contact el and could not figure out what could be wrong. I did order a new one and will send the other back for repair. After my last experiment im leaning more towards the battery being the problem. As soon as my spare battery charges im going to try that one.

I would be quite happy to talk to you Shawn but I wouldn’t be able to offer much advice.

Incidentally I don’t work to well when cold. lol

Alan Lott said:
I would be quite happy to talk to you Shawn but I wouldn't be able to offer much advice.

Incidentally I don’t work to well when cold. lol


LOL thanks. Im new to this vbattery stuff and so far im not convinced its better then track power.

My spare baterry has a full charge. I hooked it up to the Big John and ran it outside. Its been running for 20 min so far and no problems. I think it is safe to say at this point the problem is with the battery. Its a new battery only run a few times. I wonder what is wrong with it that it keeps shutting off power. I even hooked it back to the charger and only took ten min or so to fully charge. It has a charge.

Shawn,

Lithium battery-packs do not operate properly when the temperature is under 40 degrees. Most likely what’s happening is the PCB circuit board is cutting off the power because it’s trying to over discharge, in other words; there’s not even current carrying capacity of the cells both when charging or discharging and it’s power handling capacity is reduced. The operating ambient temperature window of a lithium battery-pack is between 40 - 90 degrees, and using a lithium battery outside of this window could cause harm or damage to whatever device it’s operating in.

In cold operating temps I recommend using Nimh packs.

Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC

Thanks Rick,
I’m sure many of us were not aware of that.
The 90 degree upper concerns me a bit too. Summer temps are close to that limit and sometimes over.
Ralph

Ralph Berg said:
Thanks Rick, I'm sure many of us were not aware of that. The 90 degree upper concerns me a bit too. Summer temps are close to that limit and sometimes over. Ralph
Thanks Rick. I thought about temp being the issue. The only concern I have is why did the new pack work outside today in 21 degree temps and I even ran it for over 20 minutes. The the battery that shuts off also did it inside. Does the cold temp do permenant damage to the battery? Also anything I read it says that Li-ion are the best cold weather battery operating at 0 degrees. Guess thats not true. I wonder if I should look into something different since my main reason for going battery was to run in snow.

Rick I also sent you an e-mail through your web site.

This prolly has nothing to do with your problem, but is the loco completely isolated from the track?
I mean brushes and busses removed.

John Bouck said:
This prolly has nothing to do with your problem, but is the loco completely isolated from the track? I mean brushes and busses removed.
Thanks John. I have everything still hooked to track power but it is isolated by using a DPDT switch. If it was not isolated from the track it would have cut off ever time and the new battery worked fine outside. Even the problem battery worked fine when I first tried it out 2 weeks ago. I e-mailed Rick and seems that the Li-ion are not good in cold weather. Everything you read they say Li-ion are good cold weather batteries. This kind of defeats the purpose of me going to battery power since I wanted it for cold weather running. I might have to look into a Nimh battery for my cold weather running. They seem to be higher priced then the Li-ion and much larger. Who says this battery thing is less expensive.

Shawn,

John brings up a very good point. If the track power is on and one track pickup is bleading through to the engine while your operrating in the battery mode, you will probably ruin the engine. Let’s make sure that you have disconnected the track pickups before you go any further, turn off the track power and try operating both batteries in the same engine at separate time and let’s see what happens. Let me know what happens and I’ll get back to you tomorrow night.

Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC

Rick Isard said:
Shawn,

John brings up a very good point. If the track power is on and one track pickup is bleading through to the engine while your operrating in the battery mode, you will probably ruin the engine. Let’s make sure that you have disconnected the track pickups before you go any further, turn off the track power and try operating both batteries in the same engine at separate time and let’s see what happens. Let me know what happens and I’ll get back to you tomorrow night.

Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC


Thanks Rick. There is no power going to the tracks because the power pack I use is unplugged. Even though I have a DPDT switch to isolate the track pickup I still made sure I did not have the power pack on.

There doesn’t need to be power going to the track.
The bleed that Rick talks about is that power is going to the rails and using the rails as conductors.
Thus your battery is powering the rails as well. That will drain a battery really fast!
Put the loco on a short piece of track.
Power it up with a battery and test the rails with a voltmeter.

Not to start a argument, but,…
Li-ions do operate well in cold weather. They are used up here by several members in the winter. I haven’t noticed any problems.
Maybe they last a little shorter than others, but all batteries have that problem in cold temperatures.
And if they didn’t, they wouldn’t use them in the new electric powered automobiles.
Unless our batteries are different Li-ions than the big ones.

John Bouck said:
There doesn't need to be power going to the track. The bleed that Rick talks about is that power is going to the rails and using the rails as conductors. Thus your battery is powering the rails as well. That will drain a battery really fast! Put the loco on a short piece of track. Power it up with a battery and test the rails with a voltmeter.

Not to start a argument, but,…
Li-ions do operate well in cold weather. They are used up here by several members in the winter. I haven’t noticed any problems.
Maybe they last a little shorter than others, but all batteries have that problem in cold temperatures.
And if they didn’t, they wouldn’t use them in the new electric powered automobiles.
Unless our batteries are different Li-ions than the big ones.


If thats the case how do I isolate them. I thought using a DPDT switch would solve that problem? I want to keep both options. The safest way besides getting rid of track power completly would be to use plugs. Have a plug on engine wires and same for battery wires as well as track pick up wires?