best voltage for bachmann battery conversion? ni cd or nimh?

[tiffinjim]

what is the best/most accurate voltage for bachman battery conversion?  using ni cd or ni mh?

[Curmudgeon]

NiMH gives more capacity for the size than NiCad. NiCads work just fine.

All of mine are NiMH, with some still using NiCads.

If you are not an east coast slot-train person, I always use 14.4V. I also replace the wimpy or carbon-arc LED's with 14V incandescent.

Which locomotives?

TOC

[Rex in Pinetop]

I was at an RC club meeting (airplanes) last night.  We had a guest speaker introducing yet another type of Li-Po battery.  Flying electrics needs a bunch of amps in small light weight packages that don't get too hot - ie less that 110F when loaded.  I was wondering if anyone has tried Li-Po's on their trains?

Rex

[ttrigg]

I have Li-Po's for my camera quad copter. They are MUCH lighter than other types with the same or slightly longer flight time.

[bigwhitebear]

Rex in Pinetop

I was at an RC club meeting (airplanes) last night.  We had a guest speaker introducing yet another type of Li-Po battery.  Flying electrics needs a bunch of amps in small light weight packages that don't get too hot - ie less that 110F when loaded.  I was wondering if anyone has tried Li-Po's on their trains?

Rex

 

Rex in Pinetop

I was at an RC club meeting (airplanes) last night.  We had a guest speaker introducing yet another type of Li-Po battery.  Flying electrics needs a bunch of amps in small light weight packages that don't get too hot - ie less that 110F when loaded.  I was wondering if anyone has tried Li-Po's on their trains?

Rex

I've been using Li-Po's for several years.  I've tried pre-assembled battery packs from a couple different manufacturers and was disappointed with their life span. Now I build my own packs using size 18650 cells.  I use 4 cell packs, 4 cells in series X 3.7 v each = 14.8 volts.  To increase storage I wire two 4 cell packs in parallel to increase the milliamp capacity.  The more milliamps the longer the train will run.  My LGB Moguls will run 6 to 8 hours on a charge with a 14.8 volt battery capacity of 4000 ma rating, depending on several variables such as lights, sound, length of train etc..  My layout has three levels of track over 500 feet of length, trains are climbing and descending pretty well all the time.   Trains don't place high draw power demands on batteries like flying or high speed ground electrics so there's no need to buy the higher priced high load rated battery packs.  

Hope this helps.  

Phill