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Atlas/Dapol Track Cleaning Car with Railpro?

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CPRail:
I picked up a BNIB Atlas/Dapol Track Cleaning Car for a song at our local train show this weekend. In reading the instructions it says it works on a maximum of 9 volts. It does have an eight pin plug for a decoder.

Has anyone set one of these units up for RailPro? Do I need to put in a LM to keep it "safe" or can I just use it on the RailPro track power? Seems a waste of a LM just to turn it on and off, but I suppose I could go nuts and install lights (beacons, headlights, etc.)

Thoughts?

G8B4Life:
9v would seem a bit low. On DC it's obviously sharing whatever the track power is with the locomotive pulling it and most DC power packs deliver at least 12v, if not a bit more. RP's track voltage is 14 point something (I forget exactly these days) which is probably a enough to shorten the life of the motor more than you'd accept if it is a 9v motor but without seeing the circuitry inside it's a bit hard to tell.

All up, if you wanted to be sure you could simply splice in a couple of bridge rectifiers inline with the motor to lower the voltage to the motor (easier but not as elegant as a proper voltage regulator).

If you put an LM in, you could make an accessory project for it, load some custom rail grinding sounds etc into it, slap some Loram decals on the side and have a freelance rail grinder.

- Tim

CPRail:
Hey Tim,

IIRC, the instructions did mention something about sharing the load with the loco. I'll have to re-read them. I'll also see about cracking it open and see the wiring. Gotta do it anyways to access the 8 pin plug.

Stay tuned.

CPRail:
While on my lunch break, I found this page from TCS on the car:

https://drupal.tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/1163

gregeusa:
Interesting, it's stated that running over 9v will melt the solder on the pickup springs in the truck.

The implication is the current will go up enough the melt the solder, so, right off the bat, not a great design.

I'd put a diode chain in series with the motor lead to reduce the voltage the motor sees... that should keep the current levels below the "melt solder" levels.

(can you say poor design by Atlas?)

Greg

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