If you spay electrical cleaner that you can see all the ‘gunk’ run out, you will likely also the lubricants. Wait for it to dry 10 minutes~1hour. Then add lubricant (micro drops). The layout reminds me of the Stuttgart station with lead in tracks from ever which-way.
I did not want to squirt electrical cleaning fluid in the motor, I did not see him squirt any in it myself, we just used that stuff to clean all the gears and then let the gears dry to get the dirt/dried oil off them, he used a jewelers magnifying glass to check the gears after cleaning them, as we put the locomotive(8800) back together we put a little oil on each gear, it went from the locomotive vibrating on the track to running smoothly in one shot, but it took 4 hours to get there, a third of the time was spent just getting the motor to run without help, we finally got it to start and run reliably using the speed controller instead of my Marklin 9V controller. Yea my coffee table arrangement is busy, but that makes it interesting, for me watching a locomotive go around in a circle is boring(even two of them at the same time), but if there is a chance of a collision, I have to be an active party controlling them, I have got it down to where I can get two locomotives going at a certain speed, then somewhere around 20 trips around the circuits I need to divert circuit 3 to the side track one time around otherwise I will have a wreck, then I am back to close to 20 times around and then divert again and so on and so on, sometimes a locomotive will slow down or speed up by itself, I need to watch out for this as it usually ends in a collision if I do not pay attention, circuit 1 will have 2 crossings with #3 circuit if I can figure it out with the room I have, the first try in post 37(first photo) was a failure, I am going to try another version tonight.
I am trying different designs to find something that works at the 19 degree crossing, this is what I am going to try this weekend some time, I need the locomotive to make the crossing fairly smoothly, the first try was a failure, it was too steep too close to the crossing, this design flattens it out for a couple inches before hitting the crossing and it is overall less steep getting down to the lower level.
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Thankyou for the link, I will buy a package in the next few days, right now I am freezing outside the library using the city WIFI.
This appears to be a successful design although that is a fairly sharp turn near the crossing. And here it is with track installed. I tested it with track almost all the way installed and it worked fine all the way to the unpainted piece of wood at the bottom of the photo, mnot sure how fast it can be navigated, and it works best with a diesel locomotive with pivoting trucks, my switcher had trouble with the crossing itself, it had to be moving pretty good to get across it, the diesel locomotive crossed it at a crawl. Now I need to do the other entrance end of that track loop, that should be easy compared to this end.
I finished the extra track last night and used it for a while, had a few wrecks from not being familiar with it, it works fine. My camera died and I need to get some photos of the finished track, I forgot I needed to take photos of the track again, hopefully tomorrow I will post them, this is the longest track circuit of all three circuits.
I am going to post a photo(I hope it's not too large), not sure how focused it is, this camera I used has no flash, and the other one will not focus in low light. This repurposing of circuit threes outer track to circuit 1 appears to work great, I never used it anyway, I like it but need to get used to it, I had a lot of wrecks last night, three trains keep me busy, circuit 3 is very busy as it has 3 crossings now, it is the top train in the photo(silver passenger cars), it does have a default loop with no active crossings, circuit 1 is the train with the blue boxcar, the green American diesel locomotive is circuit 2. The 90-degree crossing has no issues, and the locomotive has no issues making the climb, the 19-degree crossing(below blue boxcar) has a sharp turn before getting to it(from left to right), I can be going too fast to make that curve, I reversed direction and the locomotive made that climb several times and then it would not do it anymore, I think it would be better going that direction and making the steep climb but for some reason it would not make the climb anymore. Another issue I have is one locomotive(8874) will not slide onto the tracks with the red thing in the photo consistently like my new locomotive(8878) does, the rear truck is always angled which makes the coupler angled, and cars will not connect all the time(but sometimes they do connect and then derail somewhere), the locomotive will also not make the climbs(but it runs around on level track without any issue until a derailment), and it is not obvious that all 4 wheels in that truck are not on the rails properly other than the coupler issue if it is really to one side, is this a common issue?
OK, I want to revisit the "Gaugemaster HF-1 Single Track Cleaner 16V AC Wall Adapter", I have it connected to circuit 1, I have never seen the light come on, how would I know if it is working? I will say that I run that train on circuit 1 really slow as that one downhill turn is very sharp, the original track on that circuit was laid out in 2005(18 years ago), that locomotive has been cleaned by me once when the locomotive started changing speed erratically, cleaning the gears it fixed that, otherwise I have no idea if it is working, I do not want to buy two more unless I can confirm that one is working.
Dirty up your track some by rubbing dirty fingers over a meter of track, and see how a loco performs with the gaugemaster power supply unplugged, then plugged in.
It does not light up when the locomotive is removed, the only time it lights up is when I remove one of the wires that feeds the track with power, then the light comes on, and it does the same thing with my small oval test track that has at most 10 track pieces. I have never seen the light on except when I remove one of the wires that connects to the track, then the light comes on, the reason I mentioned this is because in the literature about it, it suggests that complicated tracks(like mine?) cause it to shut down(not work), water based glue also has the same effect says the literature, I believe that super glue is likely water based and all my track is glued down with it, if that is the case it would likely never work, this is why I tested it on my small oval test track, it is not complicated nor is it glued down, but it does the same exact thing/has the same result, it also suggests one should not bridge the gap between the tracks with one's finger, I feel nothing when I do that.
When I see my locomotive lose power in a spot I will rub my finger over the tracks in that area and it fixes it most the time, my finger will have a black line/lines on it after doing this.
I had a collision today and my locomotive fell about 3" on its side and it quit working(moving) after I put it back on the track(but the lights worked), this happened once before but it fixed itself, but not this time, I pulled it apart and checked everything I know to check, like make sure the brushes are still in position, all the copper tangs are touching what they are supposed to be touching, I could find no issues but it would not move, so I went a step farther and used my Marklin 9 volt battery power/speed controller and if I touched the actual brushes the motor would run(touched only for a moment), there is this electrical thing(diode/transistor/circuit/chip) thing top center on this locomotive that has a very small wire on each side that comes from the main circuit board, these wires touch these legs of the electrical thing, I put like 3 cheater glasses on all at once for like 750 power and looked close at the wires and one was not touching it like the other was, I used a needle and bent the wire against the leg like the other one did and it ran when I gave power to the main circuit board where these wires came from, they are not soldered to the legs, they just rub against them. I suspect when the locomotive fell on its side it bent the wire and that is why it quit working, I guess I will need to put railing/sides on that raised track section where the 90-degree crossing is as the locomotive falls the same way every time as that is the direction the other train is going, I get distracted when problems happen, instead of stopping all the trains I just work on the issue while the other trains continue on their way which sometimes leads to a collision/wreck, I would make a terrible head guy at a railroad yard, I would get fired for having one wreck too many, all I need to do is divert circuit 2 to the other track section and there will be no more wrecks/collisions as the issue will not take that long to fix.
Is there a section for model train shows/swap meets/meets, if there is one close enough I would like to attend.
I would agree, the light does not come on even using it on the test track, I have to remove the red wire or other wire from the empty track to get the light to come on.
Here is the original schematic that came with mine about 20 years ago. Double check to make sure it’s wired correctly
I have it wired correctly, but I will double check. The reason I tested it on my test track was so I could eliminate any wiring issues I might have on my coffee table wiring, there are so many wires on the bottom side of that table that I thought maybe a power wire was plugged into the wrong source for a turnout ect, my small oval track has nothing except the power terminal track, that is it, and it is resting on a bare piece of plywood(no glue/paint), I think I even switched the wires on the power to see if that changed anything, the track wires and controller wires would likely just reverse the direction of the train, but I can try that again on the oval test track.
I received a new American type locomotive yesterday and track cleaner locomotive today, I had to take the new locomotive apart and free up the wheels when it arrived(this was mentioned in the ebay ad), they were solidly stuck with dried oil, I finally got the gears cleaned and lubed and it was great, I used the new locomotive and it ran pretty slow at first, but it is amazing how fast the wheels get dirty, the crossing became an issue until I cleaned the wheels. I have an issue, well its not really an issue, I am limited to 3 cars behind the locomotives on circuit 2, if I put any more behind it on the long uphill grade it goes slower and slower until it stops just before getting to the top, it just spins out without moving, at first I could have 6 cars and it went right up, but over time this started happening, I never noticed this before because the locomotives had to be run faster or they would just stop running, but as time has went by I have learned how to service my locomotives, yesterday I put both my diesel type locomotives together and was able to put all the extra cars I had behind them and up the hill/grade they went, but I am not sure now if I should be running them in tandem anymore, is there a reason not to run locomotives in tandem? What if both are new? I ask because the seller that I got the locomotive from yesterday had 2 old stock new ones for sale, I could buy the other one also.
