Playmobil battery charger

Gerard

Gerard

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Hello,

I am a Dutchman and new here and i am enjoying very much all the posts with urls of track movies etc. !
My question to this forum is the following:
I am trying to run a battery RC playmobil train for my grandchildren on my 120m LGB garden track, so i bought myself a second hand 4010 RC train with its own battery holder and i bought in a separate buy a 4396 RC Train battery charger.
The train runs well on the battery pack with in it 4 rechargable batteries,
but the 4010 battery charger is not functioning with this battery pack, no light shines when things are connected.
While looking for the reason of this malfunctioning i found out that inside the blue battery holder of the charger there are 3 electric contacts while my battery holder has only 2 electric contacts. See picture.
Do i possibly have the wrong combination of battery pack holder and battery charger?

Gerard
 

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There’s 2 types is battery packs,
The original battery from the factory that uses the charger you have. This one is sealed up and can’t be taken apart.

the other one is a playmobil spare part 7829, this one you put your own as batteries in and then remove them to charge them.
the 7829 has a screw on the end.

Dan
 
The 3rd terminal would have been connected to the - side of the circuit, in layman's terms it told the charger when to charge and when the battery pack was charged. Without it the charger does not recognise there is a battery. As the others have mentioned, the battery carrier you have needs the batteries to be charged in a seperate charger. Most of the original battery packs died ages ago.
It is actually possible to get one open and replace the batteries, but the original blue chargers were never up to much, especially compared to what is available now.
Paul.
 
As other's have said, the blue charger is for the old un-openable black battery packs(of which there are two kinds 4220 NiMh and 4392 NiCd). But even if you have the old black battery pack, the original blue battery chargers are deceptive. They may be functioning without showing any immediate signs of functioning. The red light flashes at very long intervals when in use, so it may not be obvious if the connection is valid. Check the documentation for clarification of how the indicator light functions: https://playmobil.scene7.com/is/content/Playmobil/4396pdf.pdf Also, they sometimes do not connect well, so some have found rubber bands useful in maintaining enough pressure for a valid connection. But the newer grey open-able battery holders (as you have) are much more desirable and make the blue chargers just about obsolete. You do not need the blue charger.
 
Thanks you all for your remarks, i now beginning to understand how it works!
I do have an old charger for NI-Cd batteries, see attached photo.
Can you advise me: is this charger OK for loading the Ni-MH batteries?
And do all batteries have to have the same amount mAh?

Gerard
 

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Many thanks for all your good advice!
I have an old charger , see photo, for Ni-Cd batteries.
Can i use this one for Ni-MH batteries with different mAh values?
If not, what charger do you recommend?
 

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Gerard said:
Thanks you all for your remarks, i now beginning to understand how it works!
I do have an old charger for NI-Cd batteries, see attached photo.
Can you advise me: is this charger OK for loading the Ni-MH batteries?
And do all batteries have to have the same amount mAh?

Gerard
Click to expand...
Some chargers have different settings for NiMH and NiCd, so I would assume they are not compatible, but I don't know what kind of problem may result from using them in the wrong charger. Not all batteries have the same Milli Amp Hours. They still work if you mismatch different mAh batteries in the train, but they will not drain equally and may affect the longevity of some of the batteries more than others. I'm not sure what your charger is capable of, but I have charged different mAh batteries in a single charger with no problems. You probably want a NiMH charger if you are using NiMH batteries. NiMH batteries are much better than NiCd batteries.
 
Gerard said:
Thanks bbbb , so i will look around for a Ni-MH charger.
Click to expand...
You might also want open up the motor-block and make sure the gears have enough grease on them. If the gears have never been re-greased on some of these old trains, the old grease can dry out and not protect the plastic gears very well. I use silicone grease, and a paste consistency is better than liquid. There are some other tips you may find helpful here: Hints & Tips
 
Welcome to the forum Gérard, obviously this is the No1 site for advice. Just be warned of the appalling jokes! There are several other Netherlands on the forum, are you close to any of them?
 
Bbbb, thanks for the Hints &Tips URL ! Your advice for greasing the gears is also a very good idea.
Paul, i will have a look at the members list. Maybe there is somebody in my neighbor hood :)
 
Here's a video of one of the old non-openable black battery packs having the cells replaced:
 
It is very difficult to see what he is doing when he is soldering the new batteries!
There are three contacts on the top.
Did i see it right that the middle contact was between the 2nd and the 3rd battery?
Not many other options i guess but i do not know where this third contact is used for.
Any ideas?
 
Gerard said:
It is very difficult to see what he is doing when he is soldering the new batteries!
There are three contacts on the top.
Did i see it right that the middle contact was between the 2nd and the 3rd battery?
Not many other options i guess but i do not know where this third contact is used for.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
As I mentioned before, the 3rd terminal was been connected to the negative side of the circuit, in layman's terms it told the charger when to charge and when the battery pack was charged. Without it the charger does not recognise that there is a battery.
Incidentally I have opened up and replaced the cells in these old battery holders, but found that it was barely worth the effort as the blue chargers are so poor when compared with a more modern set up.
 
Paul2727 said:
As I mentioned before, the 3rd terminal was been connected to the negative side of the circuit, in layman's terms it told the charger when to charge and when the battery pack was charged. Without it the charger does not recognise that there is a battery.
Incidentally I have opened up and replaced the cells in these old battery holders, but found that it was barely worth the effort as the blue chargers are so poor when compared with a more modern set up.
Click to expand...
Those old batteries would have been NiCad ones, the ones in my old ones certainly were. I wonder if there is any mileage in replacing the batteries with NiMh, faffing about to get a new socket then just a rewire to trash the old blue charger and use a Smart Charger?
 
dunnyrail said:
Those old batteries would have been NiCad ones, the ones in my old ones certainly were. I wonder if there is any mileage in replacing the batteries with NiMh, faffing about to get a new socket then just a rewire to trash the old blue charger and use a Smart Charger?
Click to expand...
There were two versions of the old black non-openable batteries, one NiCd, one NiMH:
Screenshot from 2021-04-15 10-27-24.png
But according to one set of documentation, there only appears to be one charger associated with both kinds of packs(though there is a different product number for the UK variant of charger):
Screenshot from 2021-04-15 10-27-35.png
Here's the document to verify with:

Now I wonder how the 4393 and 4395/GB are different. Both of those appear to have european plugs. I don't know what the product number of the US charger is.

I may have to put NiMHs in the pack and see what happens when I put them in the US version of the blue charger.
 
-bbbb said:
There were two versions of the old black non-openable batteries, one NiCd, one NiMH:
View attachment 283928
But according to one set of documentation, there only appears to be one charger associated with both kinds of packs(though there is a different product number for the UK variant of charger):
View attachment 283929
Here's the document to verify with:

Now I wonder how the 4393 and 4395/GB are different. Both of those appear to have european plugs. I don't know what the product number of the US charger is.

I may have to put NiMHs in the pack and see what happens when I put them in the US version of the blue charger.
Click to expand...
I have 2 of these devices and both say NiCad on the Black Socket thingy.
 
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