A short play in the shed tonight. I thought I would give my twinset railcar a run on the non DCC loco setting. I had the lid off to start with as I had not managed to get it to go. I must admit that I was rather surprised to see a circle or blue sparks round the commutator. 'Must be time for a clean' I thought. Never mind, on with the lid and up and down the yard a couple of times. A few track spots presented themselves as problematic and I was just starting to investigate when I noticed a quite prototypical wisp of smoke emanating from under the railcars body, as well as blue flickering lights on the trackbed under the motor compartment.. 'That's odd ' I thought, 'I don't normally make models that well'. I lifted off the track 'tout suite' (that means quickly for those of you who slept through french at school). On taking the lid off and putting it back on the track I was greeted by a bright blue light where the brush contacts the commutator. This was then deemed to be a bad thing and I shut everything down. It was quite spectacular in a 'my that is an interesting scientific phenomena I wonder if I need to look for a new motor now...' sort of way
(As a note here before everyone tells me I'm a mug, I am well aware that running non DCC loocs with a DCC box is an idea right up there with banging ones head against a brick wall or voting ACT, which I did once as a scientific experiment (but that's another story). Please don't point out that it is a bad idea when its quite obvious that it is.
I have manged to run non DCC locos with my old Challenger unit but that only had an old apple power supply with a power output that might light an LED on a good day. Obviously the new power supply makes blue sparks everywhere untill the smoke comes out)
Kids, don't try any of this at home....
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ah! the old brush routine.have been working on a botchmann dash 8-40C chassis for a friend which was running very slow and erratic. turns out the brushes were sticking due to crap build up. i find isopropyl alcohol works well to clean commutator area,etc and i also place some in hole on top of brush holder and use a pin to push brush carefully up and down.usually i need to remove brushes completely and clean whole assy. once the alcohol has evaporated, i test. 9 times out of ten, sticking brushes are the culprit for poor running or non running, especially if motor has been sitting unused for long periods in damp or cold environment.BTW sometimes u need to retension the brush springs very carefully,without losing them.
on a non-dcc track - I tried a hornby DC which has pulse, and feedback, and apparently quite dynamic running characteristics according to some UK sites. It was so dynamic in fact, it supernovaed two late model bachmann dash's, as well as an older item before I stopped using it. I'm now, very wary of anythng with pulse or feedback on it now - and I'm afraid that includes DCC...
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