Model Railway Forum

It all ground to a halt today - I decided that sitting on a chair was preferable to perching on the Hoover. I even found a folding stool in a corner of the shed, hidden behind some garden tools. Dug it out, cleaned it off, tried it for size and immediately my back went ‘ping’. :shock: Rest of day sp...

He will have to change his avatar.

RogerB wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:40 am

Very good Steve - it seems that "less is more" is true then? R-

Very much the case Roger.
It surprised me how little you need to use. You have to be quite subtle to get the right effect - and subtlety has never been a strength for me.

Finally, a short video to show it all working.

0EBDECFA-E0E5-41F3-94BF-BDBBB836043A by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

One issue that did show up in operation was that the hook would not always cleanly lift as the tolerances are quite tight, so a final modification was to replace the plastic cross bar with a length of 0.5mm brass wire. The height of this can be adjusted by using either standard or cranked Bachmann c...

In operation: Note only one hook is used, so the stock is ‘handed’. Under tension, approaching the electromagnet. https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1815/43979712892_b49b201e18.jpg 20180814_110940 by Steve Mumford , on Flickr Stop with the tail of the coupling over the magnet, activate the electromagnet...

I had also come across a modification to help with the problem of recoupling when the unhooked stock is being pushed. All you need is a staple, a short length of 0.5mm brass wire and as previously stated the hook from a Bachmann coupling. These are the component parts laid out prior to assembly. htt...

While experimenting with the Dinghams I had made some electromagnets from a few spare Seep point motors. Carefully cut them in half and wire them to a suitable power supply via a push to make switch. https://farm1.staticflickr.com/837/42685803865_37f4b79a96.jpg 20180723_145855 by Steve Mumford , on ...

Paul-H wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 22, 2018 9:13 pm

Hi

You could replace the permanent magnets with electro magnets so you only get intentional uncoupling.

Paul

Patience Paul.

A couple of threads have recently touched on couplings and in particular uncoupling, either manual or automatic. A couple of months ago I experimented with Dingham autocouplers - beautifully made, but requiring a small amount of modification to the stock, so I decided that wasn’t for me. While resea...