Over the year I have heard and read about keeping the battery charged in MTH engines. I am concerned about leaving a battery in a engine that will not be running for a while and having a problem with the electronic caused by a battery drain of power. Since I am getting ready to pack away a few of my engine that are only used on my Christmas display, can I just remove the battery and install a fully charge one next winter? I never heard this question asked so any insight into this matter will help.
With PS-1 engines, if it’s been sitting along time, they say to fire it up and let it sit in nuetral for 15 minutes or more before cycling into forward. This apparently charges up the battery without scrambling the board. I have a PS-1 FP-45 that sat for 3 or 4 years without being ran and I did this with no problem.
I don’t think the battery going dead is an issue with PS-2 engines. I own only one but still don’t know for sure.
I’m surprised that you didn’t get more responses. Let me put another perspective on it:
Under no circumstances would I “store” a locomotive, tender or whatever with the battery still inside.
In the last three months I have had three different samples of three different sizes of battery leak in their packages, a radio, and a flashlight. In all three instances the batteries were either brand new or had extremely little use on them. They were “brand-name” alkaline batteries from a very well-known manufacturer (that I won’t name) with “use by” dates of 2013 and 2015. The flashlight was ruined; I managed to clean out the radio; and I returned the new package to the store.
That should give you food for thought.
I totally agree.Do Not Leave the battery in if it’s going to sit a long time or be stored. You have the right idea, put in a freshly charged battery the next time you get it out.
The MTH battery issue has been beaten to death; yet it remains confusing. I don’t claim to understand all of it; but here’s what I would do. If the loco is running well, and its current battery is well-charged, go ahead and shut the locomotive down. Remove the battery. Next year, either recharge the battery outside of the loco prior to re-installing it; or buy a new battery and be sure that it is fully charged. Then, and only then, install it. Your loco will then either work properly – or it won’t.
Meanwhile, research the BCR website, the MTH website, and the several forums. Somebody somewhere must understand this stuff better than I do.
I have maybe 30 MTH locomotives up to about 10 years or so old (when the first PS2s came out, not sure of the date) I have yet to replace a battery. I now have one that is acting up and I will replace it with a BCR soon. Some have gone a year or so between running with no ill effects as far as I can tell. Most of the MTH batteries are not all that easy to remove and reinstall and you may do more harm than good taking them apart to many times. The batteries are nicads, not dry cells and although they may leak, I have never had one do so. When you decide to run one that has not run for a while, just put it on a powered siding and let it sit while you run trains for a couple of hours. They say it takes up to 14 hours to fully charge them, but I find they run just fine after a couple of hours and after that they charge as they run.
To add to John’s reply,
About 3 years ago MTH PS-2 switched to a 3 volt system. Early PS-2 was 9 volt.
The current PS-2 battery is marked “2.4 volt Ni-Cad” . It looks like two 1.2 volt Ni-Cads sealed together in a heavy blue plastic jacket to prevent leakage damage.
Also — if you “download” locomotive software it is marked, on-line, as 9 volt or 3 volt, they are not interchangeable.
I too am saying it’s not impossible but I have never seen or heard of a nic-cad leaking either and that goes for cordless power tools that get tossed around and abused as well. I too would hesitate to remove the battery on a routine basis for the reason you mention.
What I was getting at with PS-2 is I understand that board scrambling caused by a dead battery is no longer an issue.
It is also my understanding MTH warns against using dry cells because the voltage is higher than nicads and they could cause damage.
It can be very difficult to place accurate probabilities on events that occur infrequently. Consequently, risks to equipment or personnel are hard to determine. My rule of thumb is if the probablility of something bad is greater than zero, I try to avoid it – especially if I can do so at low cost…
The is something fundamentally unsound about raising an issue on a “forum,” getting a reply of the type “I’ve never had a problem,” and taking it as the Revealed Word.
All you have to do is to search “Google” using key words such as “NiCad battery leak” or using “NiMh” or “lithium” or “alkaline” or whatever, instead of NiCad. You will get a good many hits from folks who opened up some piece of equipment and found gunk all over the battery chamber and/or the circuit boards, etc. Are these people hallucinating? Extremes of heat, or cold, or over-charging, or who-knows-what can raise the likelihood that something will go wrong. What is the chance? I don’t know. But storing things with their batteries inside suggests that you know. Do you? You’re the one who has to make the decision.
I realize that removing/replacing batteries in some equipment is not easy. I also know that many folks put some device away, fully intending to unpack it in just a short period. Sometimes they don’t get back to it until long after they intended to.
Many batteries, especially rechargeable ones, lose their charge just sitting there. If you have a product that can be adversely affected by trying to run it on low charge, this could jump up and bite you in the ass.
I always charge my batteries outside of the device that uses them.
Batteries are very commonplace in our society; so much so that very often scant attention is paid to them. That can be risky: If you want to have an “exciting” afternoon, just drop a battery (say a litt
You’re a bit quick with the trigger here. We said there is a probability of nicad leakage (low) in our posts. You brought up dry cells (high) in your first post.
I’ve read the threads, my answer is still the same, if you are going to store them, take the batteries out. Why chance it.