Shawn,
If you want to bring it over on Sunday and we can take a look at her.
Nico
I was also thinking i tested the engine with the problem battery with the engine off the tracks (upside down) and it still cuts off. Ill give the short piece of track a try witht he meter and let you know how I make out.
Even when I charge the problem battery it takes less then 5 minutes to fully charge. If the battey were being drained wouldnt it take the usually 2 hours to charge rather then -5 minutes?
Nico I will bring both engines with me since they both were shutting the battery down.
Me thinks you have a bad battery.
Try a different chemical type. Like a Nihm or Nicad. (One that doesn’t have a cut off circuit board.)
On your DPDT switch, you have separated the left and right side, correct?
And soldered it properly?
John Bouck said:Everything is seperated on the DPT. It runs fine on track power. I also did the track test and im not gettting any juice through the rails. But now I noticed the new battery cut off as well when placed on that short track. The other day it ran fine for a good 20 min. So far im not a big fan of li-ion batteries. I might end up trying somehing different or scratching the whole battery thing completly. Something on the engine has to be doing this.
Me thinks you have a bad battery. Try a different chemical type. Like a Nihm or Nicad. (One that doesn't have a cut off circuit board.) On your DPDT switch, you have separated the left and right side, correct? And soldered it properly?
Shawn.
Forget about having track power turned on to the track.
If the loco is mis-wired and battery power for the motor is getting down into the track it can short out anyway.
To make absolutely certain there are no sneak paths from the motor to the track, put the loco up on blocks, connect the battery as per normal and switch ON.
If it runs like it is supposed to you have mis-wired the loco.
If it still cuts out, the problem is either the battery or the speed controller. Given who made the speed controller I doubt that that is the problem.
TonyWalsham said:Thanks Tony. I doubt its the speed controler as well because the light stays on until I turn the knob. Then it cuts out after a second or two. The other strange thing is the first battery that cut out wont reset unless I put it on the charger for a second. The other battery i just have to unplug it from the critter control and re-connect and it turns the power back on. Why would the engine run for 20 minutes plus the other day and then all of a sudden trip? I aslo set the engine on blocks it triped with the first problem battery but not the second one, only when placed on that short piece of track. That means its a missed wired loco? but why did it run fine the other day and one battery triped on blocks and the other did not? It seems there is no rhyme or reason, making it harder to figure out. I gues if anything when I figure this out I will have a much better understanding about this stuff. I even put in a new DPDT switch. Maybe my next step is to take the trucks apart and see where those pick-ups are and make sure nothing is slit or crossing over the motors. Im sure in the end I will figure it out and be some so simple.
Shawn. Forget about having track power turned on to the track. If the loco is mis-wired and battery power for the motor is getting down into the track it can short out anyway. To make absolutely certain there are no sneak paths from the motor to the track, put the loco up on blocks, connect the battery as per normal and switch ON. If it runs like it is supposed to you have mis-wired the loco. If it still cuts out, the problem is either the battery or the speed controller. Given who made the speed controller I doubt that that is the problem.
Shawn - As many newcomers to battery power do, you are afraid to commit your loco to battery power because you don’t have any experience with it. So to be safe, you want to keep your options open by putting in the battery/track switch. Seems simple enough. But given the fact that most locos don’t have any real documentation for the wiring, you can easily be fooled into thinking your switch installation is good, when in fact it isn’t. My point is, the switch just complicates the installation. End of lecture … You can of course do whatever you want.
With your loco setting on the track and your switch set for battery power, take an ohmmeter and set it on a fairly high range, like 10K ohms (if it isn’t auto-ranging). Measure from the motor output terminals on the Simple Critter Control: Measure from one side of the motor to one track, then the same side of the motor to the other track. Now, measure from the other side of the motor to each track. In every case you should be reading an open circuit (at least 100K ohms or higher). There may be multiple track pickup points on your loco, and your switch installation didn’t account for all of them.
The LED on the Critter Control is just a power indicator. It is telling you what the battery voltage is doing. As soon as you turn the knob, the control is apparently driving an excessive load. This is shutting down the battery protection circuit in the battery pack. It will trip for various reasons. One (I believe) is excessive current). These Lithium-Ion batteries aren’t capable of the unusually large current demands a short would cause. So the battery tripped, but it isn’t “drained”. The charger is probably just resetting the protection circuit.
Del Tapparo said:
Shawn - As many newcomers to battery power do, you are afraid to commit your loco to battery power because you don't have any experience with it. So to be safe, you want to keep your options open by putting in the battery/track switch. Seems simple enough. But given the fact that most locos don't have any real documentation for the wiring, you can easily be fooled into thinking your switch installation is good, when in fact it isn't. My point is, the switch just complicates the installation. End of lecture ... You can of course do whatever you want.With your loco setting on the track and your switch set for battery power, take an ohmmeter and set it on a fairly high range, like 10K ohms (if it isn’t auto-ranging). Measure from the motor output terminals on the Simple Critter Control: Measure from one side of the motor to one track, then the same side of the motor to the other track. Now, measure from the other side of the motor to each track. In every case you should be reading an open circuit (at least 100K ohms or higher). There may be multiple track pickup points on your loco, and your switch installation didn’t account for all of them.
The LED on the Critter Control is just a power indicator. It is telling you what the battery voltage is doing. As soon as you turn the knob, the control is apparently driving an excessive load. This is shutting down the battery protection circuit in the battery pack. It will trip for various reasons. One (I believe) is excessive current). These Lithium-Ion batteries aren’t capable of the unusually large current demands a short would cause. So the battery tripped, but it isn’t “drained”. The charger is probably just resetting the protection circuit.
Del thanks for the info. Without taking the power block apart each wheel has a pick-up brush on it. Each power block has the two wires + _ that come out. Those are hook up to the DPDT. I dont see any other pickups like shoes unless there is something inside the block. It makes sense but what I dont understand is why did the train run with no problems for 20 minutes and probably longer if I let it on my outdoor track? The Climax i built ran for 2 hours before it started to slow down because of the battery getting low. I would think it would have tripped from the start but that was not the case. I am no doubt getting a good lessen.
If you have a power block with only two wires, then those two wires are most likely connected to both the track and the motor. Did you take the resistance measurements? Don’t just look at wiring that you think to be correct. Take measurements to troubleshoot the problem.
Shawn:
Sounds like a sneaker short - may not be a complete short, but enough current is flowing to cause the battery issues. Can you provide a rough diagram of the wiring?
Also noted you mentioned everything works outside, but not on your inside track. with nothing on the track, measure the resistance between the rails - should be an open circuit. If it show any anything less, then something is connecting the two rails - like an attached power pack? and somehow when on battery power, there is still a connection to the rails - possibly the track sliders.
Hi Shawn,
Sorry, been on the road to Phoenix so my responses will be later in the evening…but I was just thinking about John’s comment in solving your problem but with the DPDT switch there shouldn’t be any bleed through.
Don’t give up on battery power just yet Shawn, my thinking is the PCB circuit board has an early cut-off and/or one or two of the cells are below nominal voltage thus making it very difficult to charge them. So when your charger say’s your battery is fully charged, it’s really not; for example on a 14.8V 2600mah lithium-ion battery-pack, each cell is 3.77V ea. and if one or two of the cells drop below 2.9V it’s very difficult to bring a lithium battery back to nominal voltage on each cell unless you have a cell balancing charger.
We’ll check it out and I’ll give you a call,
Rick Isard
P.S. if I misspelled something, sorry I’m a little tiiirrrriiririred…
Cordless Renovations, LLC
Rick Isard said:
Hi Shawn,Sorry, been on the road to Phoenix so my responses will be later in the evening…but I was just thinking about John’s comment in solving your problem but with the DPDT switch there shouldn’t be any bleed through.
Don’t give up on battery power just yet Shawn, my thinking is the PCB circuit board has an early cut-off and/or one or two of the cells are below nominal voltage thus making it very difficult to charge them. So when your charger say’s your battery is fully charged, it’s really not; for example on a 14.8V 2600mah lithium-ion battery-pack, each cell is 3.77V ea. and if one or two of the cells drop below 2.9V it’s very difficult to bring a lithium battery back to nominal voltage on each cell unless you have a cell balancing charger.
We’ll check it out and I’ll give you a call,
Rick IsardP.S. if I misspelled something, sorry I’m a little tiiirrrriiririred…
Cordless Renovations, LLC
Thanks Rick Battery will be in the mail today. Im curious to see what is wrong. Like you said with the DPDT switch there should not be any bleed especially if everything worked when I first tested out the battery and nithing tripped. What makes me think its not bleeding is because when the battery is left in the charger for the five minutes the train runs for an extra 10 seconds or so with the problem battery. I also though about water/snow getting into the DPDT switch. Could that creat a problem in the battery? Sunday Im meeting with our train club and there are some guys that do battery hopefully they will be able to find something.
Im doing an experiment. I set up a loop of track in my living room. I have the HLW Big John running off the battery. Been going for almost a half hour and no problems. Im going to run it until it shows signs of slowing or cuts out because of low battery. he I am going to charge the battery and see how it charges. Should take about 2 hours or so. The Im going to do the same for the climax. Lets see what happens. Based off of the 30 min run and still running I cant see the bleed being the issue. Will report my results.
Shawn, I’m going to refer back to my original post about the cold whether, especially when temps dip below 40 degrees. We’ll test it out on the analyzer and see what the amps read then run it outside.
Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC
Rick Isard said:
Shawn, I'm going to refer back to my original post about the cold whether, especially when temps dip below 40 degrees. We'll test it out on the analyzer and see what the amps read then run it outside.Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC
Im starting to think temp was the issue. I had it running inside for 3 hours before it cut off. That cutoff was probably from the battery reaching its normal low point. After work today I plan on charging the battery (should take about 2 hours or more) then run it again. If I get the same run time and charge times then I know wiring is fine. (At this point I could say it has nothing to do with the wiring or bleeding issues) I know when I ran it outside temps were easily low 20’s and probably lower the closer the battery got to the snow - few inches away. I always spoke with a friend from our cub who helped me with the wiring etc - very knowledgable with this stuff. He also cant figure out why this occured other then its a battery issue as well.
Battery is in the mail. Looking forward to see what you find out. Im betting its the battery that is the problem.
After a few days of testing the battery in both engines (even had them running on the same track with a track powered engine). I had no problems with the battery. I think we can narrow this down to either the cold or just a bad battery. When Rick gets the chance hopefully he will be able to figure out if it is in fact the cold or bad battery.
So it wasn’t mom’s fault after all?
Shawn said:So in the mean time, did you get a replacement battery?
After a few days of testing the battery in both engines (even had them running on the same track with a track powered engine). I had no problems with the battery. I think we can narrow this down to either the cold or just a bad battery. When Rick gets the chance hopefully he will be able to figure out if it is in fact the cold or bad battery.
Del Tapparo said:I sent the problem battery to Rick. I already had a spare that I am using. He is in the process of looking at it to find a possible cause. So far he reported that one of the cells was not charging but the rest where. As I get more info I will post. I never sent the battery back to all-battery because I did not know if it was the battery or engine. I much rather find out for sure whats whith the battery because if its from being in cold weather then I have to change batteries.Shawn said:So in the mean time, did you get a replacement battery?
After a few days of testing the battery in both engines (even had them running on the same track with a track powered engine). I had no problems with the battery. I think we can narrow this down to either the cold or just a bad battery. When Rick gets the chance hopefully he will be able to figure out if it is in fact the cold or bad battery.
This is what I have found out so far…
I already emailed Shawn but I thought I would inform everyone who uses lithium battery-packs the problem in this case. I’m not really keen on the construction (using thin nickel strips from the PCB board to each cell instead of 20 gauge stranded tinned wire) but after removing the PCB board and testing the voltage of each cell. The first cell, positive to the PCB board was reading 0.9V and the other three were fully charged at 4.2Vea. The problem is the first cell discharged below nominal voltage thus making it very difficult to recharge it back at 4.2V. So everytime Shawn charged and discharged this battery the voltage capacity of the entire pack never reached it’s full capacity of 16.8V, and when the three cells (4.2V x 3 = 12.6V) plus the bad cell (.9V plus 12.6V = 13.5V) reach their fully capacity of 13.5V, Shawn only had 3.9V to operate is train before the PCB board kicked in and shut off his train at 9.6V.
I’m not sure how this one cell discharged below nominal voltage, but in my experience if each cell was not cell balanced (plus or minus .03V per cell) in the manufacturing stage before construction, then this one cell would never reach it’s full capacity.
So, right know we’re cell balancing the first cell to 4.2V. Then we will fully charge and discharge the battery and read it’s voltage and milliamp capacity. If it reads 16.8V @ 1800mah or better, we’ll send it back to Shawn and he’ll be a happy camper. If not, we may have to replace that one cell then retest the PCB board.
I’ll keep you informed,
Rick Isard
Cordless Renovations, LLC