Hi. A plea for help please! I have a cased Gaugemaster controller twin track with simulators, along with 2 Gaugemaster electronic track cleaners. My locos are a mixture of Farish, Dapol and Minitrix. The issue is whether the motors of my locos are affected by my Gaugemaster stuff as I have read somewhere that feedback controllers are not good for N gauge motors, ditto the track cleaners. Everything I run is strictly DC wired for cab control (I'm an old f**t) although obviously a lot of my stuff is DCC ready. The reason I ask is that my Minitrix Britannia now seems to lope along with a sort of lop sided motion i.e. it speeds up, slows down at certain parts of the layout of its own accord.
Farish have told me not to use the track cleaners, but Gaugemaster have said everything is Ok and won't affect the motors. I really need to know as I am building a new layout now and have a stud of some 30 locos which I do not want to damage in any way. Has anyone got experience of running Gaugemaster or similar track cleaners please? Many thanks in anticipation.
Sounds like your track needs cleaning.
Graham Plowman says "Relco units have been available since the 1980's and sold as 'track cleaning' devices.
This description is unfortunately, misleading, as they are actually electrical continuity maintaining devices.....
Relcos do not clean track, however, they do delay the need for cleaning by allowing running on dirty track."
http://www.mrol.com.au/Articles/DCC/Relcos.aspx
A better solution would be to use a home made track cleaner as I've shown before.
http://wpporter.duckburg.us/trackcleaner.htm
Thanks very much, Poliss. Graham Plowman seems to have answered my questions, and as I will not be heading down the DCC track it loooks as if I will not have any issues (apart from cleaning my track, that is!). Much appreciated - I knew this forum would be a help.
Have a read through ......
http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=1015.0
Most things have been aired about them in there :)