Charging sockets

Yes, we have established the lights work..

Either you are now pulling too much current for the protection device, or there is a fault with the charger wiring.
 
Rhinochugger said:
Well, the lights work when you throw the switch - so most of that bit ought to be OK.

The lamps are 3 x 5v grain of wheat bulbs and the battery pack is 4.8v AAA rated at 900 mAh
Click to expand...

The lamps will be drawing hardly any current when operating, while the batteries when on charge will draw considerably more therefore tripping the CB.

From the voltage of the battery I am guessing that the chemistry of the batteries is either NiCd or NiMH, what you have is basically a battery torch, personally I would ditch the CB and run with that keeping the circuit as simple as possible.

I would also be mindful to check the switch was off before connecting a charger to the socket as there is the potential to short it out.

Analysis of the diagram reveals; Lights on = + Red - CB - Blue (Red Charge) - Brown -White - bulb - Yellow (Black Charge) - Black/Red - connected.
Red & Black have battery potential across them all the time regardless of whether the switch is made and the lights are on or not and the CB is in circuit all the time.
 
GAP said:
The lamps will be drawing hardly any current when operating, while the batteries when on charge will draw considerably more therefore tripping the CB.

From the voltage of the battery I am guessing that the chemistry of the batteries is either NiCd or NiMH, what you have is basically a battery torch, personally I would ditch the CB and run with that keeping the circuit as simple as possible.

I would also be mindful to check the switch was off before connecting a charger to the socket as there is the potential to short it out.

Analysis of the diagram reveals; Lights on = + Red - CB - Blue (Red Charge) - Brown -White - bulb - Yellow (Black Charge) - Black/Red - connected.
Red & Black have battery potential across them all the time regardless of whether the switch is made and the lights are on or not and the CB is in circuit all the time.
Click to expand...
Yep - NiMH
Yep lights are off when (attempting) charging
And yes, there is potential across the charging socket terminals at all times.

What I haven't managed to do yet, is to try and charge it with the other charger (since changing the charging socket from 3 to 2 pin).

I aim to get a round tuit :nod::nod::nod:
 
Rhinochugger said:
Yep - NiMH
Yep lights are off when (attempting) charging
And yes, there is potential across the charging socket terminals at all times.

What I haven't managed to do yet, is to try and charge it with the other charger (since changing the charging socket from 3 to 2 pin).

I aim to get a round tuit :nod::nod::nod:
Click to expand...

As requested.

a_round_tuit.jpg
 
Rhinochugger said:
Yep - NiMH
Yep lights are off when (attempting) charging
And yes, there is potential across the charging socket terminals at all times.

What I haven't managed to do yet, is to try and charge it with the other charger (since changing the charging socket from 3 to 2 pin).

I aim to get a round tuit :nod::nod::nod:
Click to expand...

My next step would be to get the CB out of the charging circuit, it should be for protection if there is a failure in the light circuit.
Protection in the charging circuit (overvoltage etc) should be handled by the charger.
The reason I am harping on about the CB is that it is the only semi active device in the whole circuit hence the most likely candidate to cause trouble.
 
GAP said:
My next step would be to get the CB out of the charging circuit, it should be for protection if there is a failure in the light circuit.
Protection in the charging circuit (overvoltage etc) should be handled by the charger.
The reason I am harping on about the CB is that it is the only semi active device in the whole circuit hence the most likely candidate to cause trouble.
Click to expand...
Ah, I did have an issue on my first ever battery loco, and am convinced that you must have the CB in any battery circuit.

The Ansmann comes with a Tamiya Jack plug - and as any roadie knows, the traditional jack plug makes a slight passing short every time you plug it in or disconnect

On my first battery loco, as I plugged it in, this caused a short which made the batteries to overheat and melt the wiring - any me to burn my fingers while trying to rip the wires out before I could find any cutters.

Henceforth the CB stays as close to the battery pack as possible and in every circuit :cool::cool::cool:
 
Rhinochugger said:
Ah, I did have an issue on my first ever battery loco, and am convinced that you must have the CB in any battery circuit.

The Ansmann comes with a Tamiya Jack plug - and as any roadie knows, the traditional jack plug makes a slight passing short every time you plug it in or disconnect

On my first battery loco, as I plugged it in, this caused a short which made the batteries to overheat and melt the wiring - any me to burn my fingers while trying to rip the wires out before I could find any cutters.

Henceforth the CB stays as close to the battery pack as possible and in every circuit :cool::cool::cool:
Click to expand...


A CB is for protection if there is a large discharge occurring in an electrical circuit i.e. a short circuit of the load which in this application would be extremely unlikely.

The very low battery capacity in this application a CB is just overkill on a huge scale.

For this application which is effectively something akin to a 5V torch I recommend simply using replaceable batteries and save yourself a hell of a lot of heartache except maybe for monitoring battery life.

If rechargeables must be used I would just switch the charging socket in and out when required, I use a DPDT centre off switch for this purpose on all my locos my charging sockets are never in circuit unless the battery is being charged.

Also I would never ever connect a live output charger to a battery circuit, as any good electrician will advise you are far better off working on a dead circuit.

The method I use and would recommend would be charger off/batteries connected/charger on its the way I do it both in the hobby and professionally.
 
Yeah, all of my other installations use DPDT or SPDT switches.

I have seen a few circuits which leave the charging jack live, so thought I'd give it a go

I used re-chargeables here because getting the body off the caboose is quite an exercise :smoke::smoke::smoke:
 
I have seen the damage a 'very low capacity battery' can do. I would stick with the breaker.
If you dead short an AA battery, it quickly becomes too hot to handle.
 
Yeap!
ALL the power sources we use have the capacity (sorry!) to bite us!


Shirley, by now, there MUST be someone in Norfolk, who is not too far from Mike, understands this new-fangled 'elek-trickery', and can give it a look over??

The lights work. The lead into the loco doesn't cause the problem..

So it has to be the charger is stuck wrong polarity. - Or some other problem with its' cleverness.

The junction between the two cables from the charger.

The protection device is a to low current, and just tripping because the battery / charger is pulling too much current.
 
I have a few ideas - but haven't got a round tuit

The thread is moving faster than I am :D:D:D:D:D - probably next weekend I'll have another look :nerd:
 
PhilP said:
Is there enough power left in the batteries that you can get the lights to work? - That proves battery, through cutout, through the socket (no charger), through on/off/charge switch, and the lights..

If that works, it has to be the charge socket (or its switching), wiring fault on your on/off/charge switch, or the charger side of things..
Click to expand...
We're back to this delightful box of tricks.

There was life in the batteries, so I carried on, until the lights gave out yesterday evening.

So I messed about with various charging options / sockets / polarity - and appear to have knackered one of my chargers :banghead: with a it of wrong polarity - I'd thought that intelligent chargers would be intelligent enough to have some protection - but obviously not :mad:

However, as soon as I took the load off - i.e. disconnected the three grain of wheat bulbs, the battery pack started to take a charge (from the charger that is still working).

So - it suggests that there's a short, on the load side? Shirley not. in any case, the load is switched off when charging (although only switched on the positive).

Given what I said above (and I haven't yet checked because the board is fixed so's I cannot see the tracks) but I said that I'd used very other track.......

That only leaves a fault in the sub-miniature toggle switch - n'est ce pas?
 
Greg Elmassian said:
I'd love to help, but not sure I want to read 54 older posts.

Can you summarize the current situation or quote the post that outlines the circuit, issues and symptoms?

The last page of posts is just kinda junk.

Greg
Click to expand...
Oh yes, there's plenty of junk here.

Caboose lighting - 3 x 5v grain of wheat bulbs
Battery pack 4.8 v AAA 950 mAh
Circuit has a SPST toggle switch wired into the +ve, and there is an automatic cut out device first thing along the +ve lead from the battery.

So the charging socket is not switched - only the light switch on and off.

I charged it once OK, then the second time I went to charge it, there was a short, and you could hear the cut out device clicking

I changed the charging socket - no change.

Couldn't be bothered to do any more fault finding because there was still some charge in the batteries, and the light still worked.

Batteries ran out the other day, so had another go at charging today, and that's where post 55 kicks in.

The only think I can think of is that the sub-miniature toggle has gone slightly awry (have had it before on something a long time ago) so I'm thinking of changing it, and going for a SPDT while I'm at it. I'll be driving past a Maplins on Thursday, so can hopefully pick one up :nod::nod:
 
Do you have any connectors in the circuit? - I have just discovered that some 'sets' of connectors are wired differently on each side.

Charging sockets have a switch built in to them.. If wired incorrectly, this could cause a short.

Very occasionally, I have come across a faulty toggle switch.


You have to work from one end (usually the battery) and see what voltage (and polarity) you have at each stage..
 
PhilP said:
Do you have any connectors in the circuit? - I have just discovered that some 'sets' of connectors are wired differently on each side.

Charging sockets have a switch built in to them.. If wired incorrectly, this could cause a short.

Very occasionally, I have come across a faulty toggle switch.


You have to work from one end (usually the battery) and see what voltage (and polarity) you have at each stage..
Click to expand...
No, I'm not using pre-wired connectors.
I have changed the charging socket for an unswitched type
I've got to go with the toggle switch - and if I use a SPDT then I will probably not need the strip board (not that there's anything wrong with that.....of course :emo: )

In other words, if I use an 'oN-ofF-oN' switch, which could be shortened to NFN :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
 
You do know that one of the failure modes of rechargeable batteries is an internal short, right?

This could easily trip the circuit protection.

I think we need to know the number of batteries, and the chemistry. Once you know this, you can measure the voltage of the pack and usually pretty quickly determine if there are one or more damaged cells.

From the age of this thread, I'm suspecting the batteries first.

Greg
 
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