Hi all, I got a new DC controller a few days ago and noticed a strange difference in the way my locos behaved.

Before I had been using two of Bachmann's standard DC controllers, the kind that you find in farish starter sets, to power the two parallel tracks I use. Having two separate controllers meant I couldn't have anything else plugged in while I was using them, so I got a gaugemaster D. Got it all set up, plugged it in, put my farish class 04 on the track and noticed something interesting. With the old farish starter set controller as I slowly increased the power from zero the train would stay silent until it started moving. With the gaugemaster D it would make a quiet humming noise slowly getting louder (but not by much) until it started moving. The only thing I can think of is that the minimum output of the Bachmann controller is higher than the power needed for the motor to turn, whereas the Gaugemaster controller is lower. The same thing happens with my J39.

My only worry is that I am wrong and the humming noise is an indicator that some sort of damage is being done to the motor. Am I just being paranoid?

don't worry, it probably has forgotten the words and is just humming instead 

think you might be on the right track re the voltages

alan

could be faulty rectification in the controler , if its new return it .

I'd recommend you have a word with Gaugemaster themselves as mine has no such effect on any of my locos

I'd agree that there may be something wrong here - it sounds like PWM buzz, but I've never experienced that with various Gaugemasters I've used.

Gaugemaster's service etc are usually pretty good, so worth contacting them.

Cheers,
Alan

Thanks, I'll give gaugemaster a call tomorrow. I should point out that I can only really hear it when I put my ear right up to the loco, otherwise half the time I cant hear it at all. Also the actual controller itself hums and gently vibrates, but after doing a bit of research before buying apparently its normal for them to hum a bit.

Hi ,
At Warley club we stopped using Gaugemaster dc controllers after one of our electronics skilled members showed its AC output - not much but enough to cause issues such as humming, vibration and heating of older farish motors. We now use our own controllers which use a better DC only output.

It might be that this controller has a bit more AC on the out put than it should and thus you can detect it.
Robert