Lithium Battery???

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I may get killed for this and I admittedly am not an Electrical engineer... could you use a Lithium battery for a battery mod? I am looking at a Lithium CR123A specs and it says 3V. That would be a nice boost and they are smaller than C batteries.
Has anyone ever tried this?
[-] The following 2 users Like kmott's post:
  • Branson M. Productions, lee
We also discussed this in the other thread that I can't find. Tramp gave us the low down on it.
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it can be done if you can stomach the price haha
[-] The following 1 user Likes Ucwepn's post:
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Those batteries are tiny, they're what I use when I do lighting modifications,

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Firstly you would have trouble mounting one in the battery compartment, secondly they don't have enough power, I imagine it wouldn't have enough to turn the motor, but even if it did, it would be flat in less than a minute!

With batteries you have x2 things to consider, the voltage & the capacity, my AA rechargeable batteries are around 2000mah

If you want to get a better battery your really limited to the common sizes (if your wanting a disposable type) other wise there are a lot of Radio Control type batteries which would be suitable, as these are more specialised you would have to do some research on physical sizings to ensure they fit, secondly the best batteries are lipo types (like used in radio controlled helicopters) they are really good but have limiting constraints for example, if you over discharge them they become damaged. So you need suitable protection circuits (you can buy these) but you will also need a suitable charger. if your serious about it the battery type you need to look at us 3.7v 1s lipo cell, they generally look like this,

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Then the voltage alarm, it needs to be suitable for the battery, if you use a 1s type like above you need a compatible battery alarm, this will alarm (usually audibly) when the battery needs recharging,

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This will need to fit under the trains body shell to, or at least in the tender or first carriage,

Edit, I just re read your post the cr123A is different to what I thought, it looks like it should work although it doesn't look like a direct replacement for AA or C,
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2015, 01:33 PM by Tramp.)
[-] The following 1 user Likes Tramp's post:
  • lee
Thanks Tramp
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thanks guys, as I thought it quickly way exceeded my level of expertise. I thought, "hey, if that little battery only costs a couple bucks more, then why not"
I'll stick to the traditional batteries.
cheers
CR123a 3v can be used and have been used successfully by members here before (Toys_Trains_Thing's Hotrod Thomas I believe)

Like I said above it's just the cost which is a let down it's around $5 per battery for disposables
[-] The following 1 user Likes Ucwepn's post:
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Has anyone tried li-on 14500 rechargables given they are practically same size as AA but 3.2 or 3.7 volts?
[-] The following 2 users Like WhiteKnuckles's post:
  • lee, Super
Here's a challenge/idea for someone. How about leaving the existing battery mounting in place, but adding some connections that lead to an external socket. Similarly fit a battery holder to a closed wagon or carriage with an external lead and plug.

This way if you want a speed boost you could add the wagon/carriage and plug it into the loco's socket giving a voltage boost. Alternately have a looped plug that you can plug into the socket when you don't need/want the voltage/speed boost and want to run on the standard battery(s).

This way you get the best of both worlds, you could even potentially rig up something so you could take the wagon/carriage and plug it into a charger so that you just have rechargable battery(s) inside it and charge them in place rather than having to open it up when you want/need to change them Smile

Using this sort of method you could potentially mod all your locomotives and have the option to boost any of them...
[-] The following 2 users Like Nigels's post:
  • Super, Ucwepn
Nigel's, I am considering something similar to what you suggest but leaving the existing battery in place in the engine would have it in parallel rather than series to the wiring from the carriage so would need all the batteries in the carriage and none in the engine to boost performance unless someone has any ideas on how to rewire the engine.
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