Ride on Railways Ltd

Hercules - Section 14 Choosing Your Batteries

Car battery V leisure/traction battery

Asked anyone 20 years ago and the answer would have been simple. Use a car battery for constant drain use and the battery would be dead after a few cycles. You left your car lights on and the battery may never have recovered. Replacement batteries lasted 3 years if your were lucky.

Today we are seeing car batteries with 5 year guarantees and some lasting up to 10 years in car usage. Modern car batteries have changed. Look up on the internet and there are several sites that claim there is no differnce between modern car batteries and leisure/traction batteries.

• The Hercules has been designed to take two type 063 car batteries. These are round post and can be used with the quick release battery connectors. If you want to use flat post batteries the equivilent battery is the 085.

• To cover ourselves we have to recommend that you use leisure / traction batteries for this engine. That said they are roughly twice the price and we haven't had any problems to date. Be aware though any guarantee which comes with car batteries will be void as you will not be using then for there designed purpose.

With our own locos we see standard car batteries last 3-4 years.

• The Hercules deck is designed to accept two standard car batterries. By placing them at the ends the loading on the bogies is more evenly distributed.

• If you intend to do most of your running on a club layout where you will have long runs on shallow gradients (long constant power drain) traction batteries should be the preferred choice.

• A type 063 car battery weighs around 12kg. Not a lot but two together on a 34kg chassis is dangerously heavy load. Please use round post and quick release battery connectors. This removes the temptation to lift a Hercules with its batteries in.

• BATTERY ACID - if there are signs of wet on a battery make sure it does not come in to contact with skin or clothing. If it does wash immediately with lots of water. Should your loco overturn, promt action to upright the batteries may save further damage/injury.

• Strap down batteries when transporting in a vehicle. Even in a foot well.

CHARGING YOUR BATTERIES

One charger - charge each battery in turn. Two chargers - Link wire doesn't have to be removed. in fact the two chargers can share the same wire. We would recommend an automatic charger which automatically drops to trickle charge when the battery is full. Over charging batteries is the main reas The control board should be isolated before charging - turn off the battery isolator switch.

• Avoid overcharging batteries - alway use an automatic battery chargers to prolong the life of the batteries.

• Do not charge in an enclosed environment - ie inside the body. Charging batteries give off hydrogen which is highly explosive so remove the body before charging.