First Job! Mechanical engineer has been pondering the operation of the scharfenberg coupler system in HO because of the immenent arrival of the Sprinters from major supplier On Track.
Because of unreliability problems we have purchased a quantity of 1mm thick, 2mm diam. rare earth magnets. They are small enough to drill out the couplers and fit inside couplings supplied by On Track. They will create a problem, because North and South poles need to be set to attract and thus hold the coupling together. This will mean that the cars cannot be coupled No 1 end to No 1 end, or 2 to 2.
As it turns out the cars operate this way anyway. V/Line never turn them, they always couple this way, and so will we.
The top coupler will have the magnets fitted to keep the powered cars together.
The 500 magnets sourced from Sydney on EBay.
My camera needs replacing. No longer focusing properly. These things are 2mm by 1mm thick.
Second Job for day (after packing car) was track repair.......
Lining up the prefabricated points
Clearing away the rubble .
And that's three tracks aligned in , ready for ballast
Final adjustments to connect the Rail Motor dock and the platform road. Then connect up all the power leads and point motors. polarity changes done electronically, and point motors only change points.
Third job was to adjust the Led lighting and add a couple more supports then trim off the zip ties
Taken before adjustments and with flash
Without flash. I am happy with light level. I am not a fan over over lighting my scenes.
So far so good
More soon
Cheers
Rod
Those rare earth magnets are a remarkable tool for model railways. I have used larger ones for clamping jigs and am currently working out if I can use them for under track uncouplers. Cheap as chips too.
ReplyDeleteHello David,
DeleteYou are right. Let us know how you go. Suspect you will use a piece of steel to place under track? I fitted magnets to pieces of steel rulers bought cheaply at discount hardware, and routed a slot under track covered it with styrene and ballast ground cover, Using a wire I was able to slide the un-coupler under the track when I wanted to uncouple and away when not needed.Cheers Rod