Large Scale Central

Www.batteryspace.com

Trying my hand at a Lithium Ion battery and charger. A number of our club members have them and are getting good results. Its kind of fun.

I’m on my second order or the second part of the first order - I wrote the following letter to the company today after a most interesting telephone experience. (The ole gals at TrainWorld may be rough, but ya know when they like ya and when they want you off the phone.)


Dear Whomever,

I have had a couple of conversations by email, 1 phone call and two purchases from your company and the best I can say is that it has certainly been an interesting or strange experience. I made contact with your company, because you are advertising on a garden railroad website. I don’t expect your company to trade exclusively with the garden railroad or model railroad hobby, but your ordering, website and response to questions are certainly strange.

My first questions were answered very professionally. But after that I am wondering are you an American company? Do your employees speak and understand English?

I don’t mean this in a cruel way, but things do not make sense and that is the only conclusion I can come to.

My first order, number 128874 was sent promptly. When it arrived, nothing is usable as it is sent. I received the 14.8 volt battery with a set of bare wires that I was well aware that I would need to add a connection to. No Problem.

The charger, that was sent with it was stated to be for 14.8 volt batteries, but was marked with 2 choices 14.4 and 18.5 volts and no instructions. So, do I set it for less than the 14.8 volt battery or for 18.5 volts which is greater? Website info says it is for 14.8 volts, but charger has written on it for 14.4 volts? I made a phone call.

I got a male that spoke very poor English and through trial and error we communicated that 16.5 volts was not a choice on the charger, I gave him the order number so he could see what was ordered and he finally told me to use the 14.4 volt selection and to charge for 2.5 hours. No instructions if I left it on longer than that, but I’ve sent another email to try to get an answer to that.

Besides the parts that I ordered, I was sent a bare pigtail wire with mail pins on the other end. What’s this for? I was also sent a selection of 8 different pins in a little rubber harness with different sockets on one end and two male pins on the others. What’s this for?

Nothing that I got works together. Called a friend that had already ordered from your company and we had a good laugh and he let me in to the secret codes of what else needs to be ordered. See order 129835. I guess parts will be here in a week. Do you know that they would be here in 3 days and cheaper if there was an option of sending them through US Mail? Just a thought for small parts.

So now let’s mention this 5% discount that you offer. On the bottom of my first order, it states.

“Please use ‘batteryspace’ as 5% discount code for your next purchasing. Thanks.”

On second order, I entered “batteryspace” for discount code, but didn’t get it. Oh well. On second printing I saw where the code should have been E7SEA. My mistake, but why mention “batteryspace” in the code area, if its not the code?

Last point. Your desire for reviews in http://forums.batteryspace.com/forums? It says “Must copy your reviews to the section of “Review on products” on Batteryspace.com forums at http://forums.batteryspace.com/forums? THAT IS NOT AN OPTION. The reviews are in “Earn a reward – Get paid to write reviews”.

Well, if nothing else its been a fun experience, so far. I hope I can eventually get some parts that I can use without major modification. Interesting experience.


Perhaps its cause they think yer a weirdo for ordering LI battereis instead of relying on tried adn true NiCAD technology…

Seriously though, I’ve ordered a lot of stuff from Batteryspace and never had a problem. Pondering ordering another brick of NiMH AA cells, since I have the chargers already, even though I’m not terribly impressed with said cells overall.

How bout letting the rest of us in on the secret other bits one must order? Details on LI use???

Connector: Adaptor 2 pins Universal Connector Adaptor (1 Female + 1 Female) with 10 " wire.
Part # CN-UNIVLFM - Adapt - Price = $2.80 (part number = 20551230)

Everything they sent, (which basically I didn’t need or want) was two pin male plug ends. All of this had to do with their “Universal Fast Smart Charger” :wink:

Life is full of experiences, some are good, all are interesting.

Hmmmmmmm I think I have one of those…

Two weeks after the first order arrived, everything is complete. Three weeks from placing the initial order. I did have to place that second order to get the double ended female connectors. This arrived last Wednesday and progress was fast on my project once that was obtained. I’ve only had a small amount of testing to see the worthiness of this battery technology, time will prove if it was worthwhile.

There seems to be two minor problems with ordering from batteryspace.com.

The first seems to be high shipping costs by using UPS when for a small object the postal service would be far faster and cheaper.

The second seems to be a language barrier. Best to do everything by online ordering. After finally getting the necessary compatable parts, I don’t expect future ordering snafus.