Battery leak, yuk

[[e-mail]]

We send people to the moon, we have cars that park themselves, and we still have batteries that leak. The other day after running my twin engine 2245 for about a week, I retired it to the display shelf because my new Williams Texas Special AA units, plus the B unit had arrived. A week later, for some unexplained reason I was working on a Post War diesel and I needed a confirmation that the power pack that I was using was up to the job and it was giving the DC needed to operate the horn. So I, thank whoever is there in train heaven, that I picked up the 2245! The battery had exploded in less that a week and a half. It was a Ray O Vac with the expiration date of (get this) 2016.  The package is a black and silver with blue. Man we, us PW train addicts, to remove the battery from the unit when placing it out of service.

I cleaned it up and all things considered it looks like nothing happened but if I had just let that engine sit there for 6 month, which is not unusual, then it could have been much worse.

So beware and remove those demons when placing the engines out of service. Bummer!

I intend to contact them and voice my displeasure at their crappy product!

O

PS: I have pics but I'm heading for my place at the Vineyard and I expect to be there for three or more weeks. I will move on this when I get back.

[rtraincollector]

Very common back in the 50'-70's but today very rare must have been a flute would be my guess now if it was there a year or so I could understand I also wonder if maybe your transformer sending to much power back thru the battery I may be wrong as not that knowledgeable on electronics.

[Train-O]

Recently I had a two month old Duracell battery which leaked. A few years ago Duracell had picked-up where Eveready left off. I had two Eveready 'D' dry cell batteries, in my bike's horn unit, that were in for a good twenty plus years. The horn still blew, even though one battery had leaked a little and the other battery, which did not leak, was only weak. Ralph

[Anonymous]

There was a thread on OGR about Duracell batteries leaking as well.  I don't take any chances so I remove the battery from 2343 F3 after every time I run it.

[[e-mail]]

Hey  rtraincollector. Actually the transformer voltage is not on the horn. The horn relay is the only thing that feels the dc voltage from the transformer. The horn sound is generated from the battery's 1.5 volts. The battery leaked and by all standards today it shouldn't have. It is good policy to remove all batteries after they have done their livery duties because they are "EVIL" and will cause harm to our loved ones. VBG

[arkady]

I've always wondered if the horn couldn't be powered by some kind of voltage-drop rectifier circuit that would convert the track AC voltage to 1.5V DC. I'm not sufficiently talented in electronics to know if it could be done. Has anyone ever tried such a thing?

[cwburfle]

arkady

I've always wondered if the horn couldn't be powered by some kind of voltage-drop rectifier circuit that would convert the track AC voltage to 1.5V DC. I'm not sufficiently talented in electronics to know if it could be done. Has anyone ever tried such a thing?

Some time back one of the train magazines published an article describing a battery elimination circuit for Lionel Horns. Sorry to write that I don't even remember which magazine, and I never built one.