Batteries for battery-electric locomotives

Mark Phillips · Post by **Mark Phillips** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:23 pm

I'm having "discussions" about what batteries to use in my battery-electric locomotive if, or should that be when, my batteries fail. Does anyone have anything to say on the subject?

I've been looking on the internet and have found elecsol (http://www.elecsol.com) that promise superb performance but at high initial cost. Does anybody have any experience of the use of these batteries in practise?

Clif Walker · Post by **Clif Walker** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:54 pm

On my battery operated locos I use ordinary car batteries because they are cheap at about £30 each. I standardised on 063 size which is the battery used on cars like the Vauxhall Astra/Cavalier and such.
On average they seem to last about three years which is not too bad if you consider the abuse that they get together with periods when they sit out in the Garage not being used at all.
One thing however that I do use is an automatic battery charger which avoids overcharging and cooking them. Clif Walker

Eric Penn · Post by **Eric Penn** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:50 pm

Having had several battery failures in what I considered to be a short time using both car and leisure batteries I decided to look around for better units and also came up with Elecsol. I bought two early last year and they are performing OK. They have a greater advertised capacity at 70ah over others I have used and the 5 year guarantee was a factor. However beware they are fee acid units (i.e. Not sealed). I also charge with regulated units (Halfords Automatic chargers), two chargers one for each battery. There is lots of battery info on this site .........
http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/

Eric Penn

Jonny Ward · Post by **Jonny Ward** » Sat May 20, 2006 8:02 pm

Try Camping and caravan shops. Purchased two 85Ah Leisure batteries today, £36 pounds each, which (at least to me) doesn't seem too unreasonable. They came with a full warranty package too.