Peter's Model Railroading | Articles | Electronics | Battery Power
When Things Go Bad

Some time in late 2024, my RS-1 stopped responding. Charging it did not help. Due to my busy work schedule, I didn't get around to taking the time to open the engine up to examine what went wrong until some time near the end of the year. When I opened it up, it became immediately clear that the battery had "exploded". Basically, the "bag" that contains all of the nasties of these types of batteries expanded somewhat. For the past couple of years, I haven't run my equipment very much, so I suspect something went wrong during a routine charging effort. Either way, nothing leaked out of the battery, and there was no damage inside the engine, as the bag still had plenty of space into which it could have expanded. The only external feedback was that the engine was completely unresponsive. While I was waiting on a replacement battery, I plugged in another battery I had on hand, and the engine responded right away, so I knew that I had found the culprit.

Here is a photo from 2012 of what the battery looked like, originally. So, from my anecdotal experience, there is nothing really to worry about with these batteries. Just give them a bit of extra space, and make it such that you can readily remove and replace the battery every decade.