Batteries for an electric loco

[Drawman]

Hi there,
I have been running a Metropolitan/Vickers “Growler” for one season now and I must say I am very impressed with its power and adhesion. It’s built to the Dan Jeavons design, using 4 Fasco motors, a 4QD controller and 2x 12volt 85amp/hour (connected in series for 24volt) leisure batteries. The batteries that are causing me some concern, as they are now showing signs of deterioration. This is due to my own ignorance of their needs in discharging them too far and not re-charging them promptly after use… I now know better.

The batteries are “ABS Leisure Batteries” type from my local Camping International store and I now intend to buy another pair. I originally chose these as they were the only ones that I could find that were small enough to fit the loco, yet had a good capacity.

There don’t appear to be any other batteries on the market of comparable size and capacity and this makes me a little nervous because if they become unavailable, what should I do for power?

With this in mind, is there anyone out there that runs a Metropolitan/Vickers “Growler” of similar design that could tell me what batteries they use, there reliability, how long they have been in use etc. Also, do I really need an 85 amp/hour capacity?

Regards to all
Geoff

[the_viffer]

I've a handful of electric locos.

I tend to use sealed lead acid batteries as sold for UPS. You can sometimes get reasonably fresh ones from people like Display Electronics (www.distel.co.uk). Orignally I got mine from someone who was in the UPS trade but at Sandown a couple of years ago I got 8 off 25Ah for less than GBP100. A friend runs a Dan Jeavons class 37 from pairs of car batteries. I tell him that doing it will trash the batteries but that would be more convincing if I'd not been saying the same thing for 3 years. I run my own 37 with 2 pairs of 40Ah not so much for the power as for the weight.

As for how much power you need only you can tell: it depends on what you are hauling. 4QD supply a cheap bargraph voltmeter and it is well worth putting on one of those in in my opinion. We tend to take two pairs of batteries of around 25-30Ah for each loco and swap at half time to avoid putitng too big a discharge across the batteries. I think 1 set would just last an afternoon's heavy hauling but to be honest I don't try as it takes only a few minutes to swap over a battery.

[Drawman]

Thanks for that, I'm surprised that batteries as small as 25-30Ah are able to cope.
As my original Leisure batteries are very cheep (£35 ish), I'll try another pair and see how they perform when looked after the way they should be.
Geoff.

[the_viffer]

I'd love to know where you get proper deep discharge leisure batteries so cheaply. If you can I suggest you keep using them.

www.distel.co.uk used to have decent non-frying chargers at a very fair price. Maybe they still do

[Drawman]

The batteries are stocked by "Camping International". According to the label on the batteries, they are made by ABS batteries, who have a web address of www.abs-batteries.co.uk, but I don't think the site really exists. If any one knows an alternative supplier for these batteries, I would be very pleased to hear.

Geoff

[alanstepney]

Camping International are at:
www.camping-intl.com/home/default.asp

Dont think they list batteries, but it is possibly the worst website I have seen, so I may be wrong.

[Drawman]

Yes, that's right, the website doesn't show batteries, but they have stocked them for at least 18 months.
Geoff