Quote from: jward on July 21, 2012, 02:39:21 AM
don't you understand it's all related?

FOR PETE'S SAKE, I'M SOOOOOO SICK OF THIS.  DO I NEED TO SAY THIS AGAIN!   TOPIC: RE-RAILING - NOT DE-RAILING.  NO, IT'S NOT RELATED.

I have stated this dozens of times already.  I am not talking about Atlas track, flex track, Acme track or McDonalds track.  This is Bachmann track.  If you are on a Bachmann site and know what Bachmann track is, then you know you have NO control over the gauge or precission of how the track can be laid.   You only have control over how the sections are joined or to throw a bad section of track away.

I have stated about a dozen times what the issue is, and the issue is not how the track is being laid.  Even if it were, I don't care how much care and precision you put into laying your track, YOU WILL GET A DE-RAILMENT sometime, and, ONE MORE TIME, that is the issue of this thread is - RE-RAILING, NOT DE-RAILING.  

If anyone out there thinks that being SUPER carefull about how the track is laid will 100% prevent de-railments, or if you have never yet had a de-railment, you are so new to model railroading, you haven't even been born yet!

The issue is, AGAIN, why the re-railer is not working.  Please, for all future commentators, if you wish to discuss the necessity of proper track laying, START YOUR OWN THREAD ON THIS MATTER.  If you wish to contribute to my thread, please stay on the ACTUAL ISSUE or thank you, please don't comment at all.

WOW,  all that and I didn't swear once!

Hey Electric Whiz Kid...RTDQ.  This isn't about laying out track work, it's about trying to get a component to do it's job.

By golly laddie, that's the ticket!

Thanks, this is far cheaper than I hoped.

Bachmann makes a very small DC Cable Car, Product Code: 60532, and I was wondering if anyone has tried to convert this to DCC yet.  Don't know if the motor is or can be isolated and if there is even a decoder small enough to fit and be somewhat hidden, perhaps one that would fit in N scale.

Well, here it is. 

The room I have the train set up in has 3 light circuits, none of which are tube lights.  The first circuit has 3 recessed can lights with standard flood bulbs, the second has 3 recessed can lights with energy saving flourescent screw in bulbs and the third is a ceiling/fan light with 3 energy saving flourescent screw in bulbs.

I went home and turned on my Dynamis with all the room lights off.  Powered right up instantly with a strong steady signal.

I then turned on the first set of recessed lights with the standard bulbs.  No change at all.

Next, I turned on the second set of recessed lights, the one with the energy saving flourescent type bulbs, and the signal immediately started fluctuating, and flucuated more rapidly as the bulb warmed up, then was completely lost after about 20 seconds.  When I turned off the light, the signal did not come back until I waited about a full minute.

Next I turned off all the recessed lights and turned on the ceiling/fan light.  Turned on the Dynamis and nothing at all.

Again turned on only the recessed lights with the standard bulbs and POW, everything worked fine.

Replaced the 3 energy saving bulbs in the ceiling/fan light and turned it on with the non-flourescent recessed lights and the system still works fine.

Flourescent lighting DOES affect some Backmann Dynamis units, and in my case, the problem is totally solved by using non-flourescent lighting.  I just will not use (and do not need to use) the 3 recessed flourescent type lights while running the train.

These are all three Backmann engines.  What if I just install a sound card in the non-sound engine?  Will CV5 & 6 be available then?  I really like the sound of the Tsunami card much better than the low cost card that came in the other engine.

So far it has not worked.

I am using both body and truck mounted couplers, most all of my cars are correctly weighted to NMRA specs and it happens with most all of my rolling stock.

The only thing that has been consistent is the truck will not re-rail if it is the lead wheel that is off the track, but if it is the second wheel in the truck, it practically always re-rails.  Seems to look like the lead wheel being on the track helps keep the truck lined up better, whereas the front wheel being off the track, the truck is pointed pretty much anywhere.

I even tried installing higher guide rails thinking they would grab the wheel better and move it back onto the track, but that didn't work either.  The wheel just climbs over it, travels down the length of the re-railer platform and drops off the other side.

Guess I will just have to either re-rail it manually or stop and back over the re-railer every time it involves the leading wheel in a truck.

Interestingly enough, we just converted the overhead light fixture in the room where our train is located to the new energy saving florescent light bulbs and since then have had nothing but signal problems. Did not correlate the two until reading these posts all over the internet.  They are not the only lights in the room, which may be why the problem does not occur all the time. This evening, I am going to try standard light bulbs again, and if this solves the problem, I will post it.

Some of the reading I have done on line about this problem seems to indicate the florescent light mixes with the IR signal, and the Dynamis receiver cannot understand the combined or mixed signal it is receiving and just ignores it.

Some have also corrected this problem by going to florescent lights that contain starters, which may indicate the newer bulbs which do not need starters emit a different type of signal or a much higher level of florescent particles than the ones which require starters.

Sometimes it works fine and other times it will not lock a signal to save it's life. Just sits there blinking green at me. Then after a while, and the time period is never the same, the system just comes to life.

Another solution I will be investigating is that some said they solved the problem by eliminating an extension cord between the wall outlet and the Dynamis. When plugged into an extension cord, they had problems and when plugged directly into the wall, the problem went away. Possibly a poorly made connection in the extension cord, most likely made in fricken China.

Either way, I intend to find out this evening, as this problem is making me want to sell Dynamis.

Well, I have both tracks running 4 DCC engines (1 Rivarossi 4-6-4 Hudson conversion to DCC and 3 Bachmann diesels) from the Dynamis 2.5 amp controller.  One power connection to each track, no solder joints and plenty of track, one up and down tressel with about a 4.5 degree slope (the diesels) and all is going great.  I temporarily put a DC controller on the main track where the diesels were and I can run a Rivarossi DC 2-10-2 engine, but it slows down on the outer edges, again, only 1 track terminal.  Not going to be running the 2-10-2 as the tracks are only 18" & 22" and it is sort of tight for it.  Runs, but doesn't seem to like it.  I am using the DC controller on the 3rd track to run a very small DC trolley car.

However, on the 2 main lines in DCC mode with the other 4 engines, all is great.

Bill,

You are correct in what you assume.  The A and B units did come "Sound Equipped" and the other A unit was DCC ready.  I purchased Bachmann's decoder and converted it to DCC equipped without sound.  I am looking into whether I can adjust with CV's or not.  If not, I may just get a sound card and make them all sound ready, and couple the two who are working well together as an A-B unit instead of the way I wanted to do it, a non-sound A unit with the sound B unit.

Ken and J3a-614,

I think you may have hit it!  The plastic platform and the top of the rail are at the same height BUT, there is a definate groove in the platform surface right beside the rail on the outside edge of the rail and the de-railed wheel is riding in that groove all the way across the platform and dropping off the opposite side.  I will try and fill it tomorrow (I guess today) and see if it makes it work. 

Jerry,

Thanks for the response.  I do intend to look for why they derailed, but that is not the problem I am asking about.

To answer your question, yes it happens on all re-railers on the tracks.  I have 7 re-railers on one track and 4 on a second.   I actually had one train make 2 laps, one at medium speed and the second at slow speed with 1 car slightly de-railed, and after crossing all 7 re-railers twice, I had to stop and fix it.

Since then, I have been watching this problem, trying many solutions and having no luck with the re-railers.  Again, the problem I am trying to solve is not the de-railing, but the failure to re-rail.  As I said in my last post, it looks like the majority of the time the truck will not re-rail if the lead wheel is the one off the track.  If the trailing wheel in the truck is de-railed, the re-railer will correct the problem.

I know how to post photos on photobucket, but not movies.

If it works, here is a link to a you tube video.  Not real great, but shows the way it is working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9XpSuIEVFA&feature=youtu.be

It shows the lead wheel walk right up the re-railer, walk across the top and drop off the other side, staying de-railed the whole time.

I appologize if I sound like I am getting frustrated, but I am.

Desertdweller:  "Rerailing would not be an issue if the car did not derail in the first place." ..... How many times do I need to say that right now I don't care why it is de-railing, only why it is not RE-RAILING.  De-railings will happen to the best of setups occasionally.

Desertdweller:  "From what you describe, it sound like the car is entering the rerailer in a derailed condition." ......  Of course it is.  If it was not de-railed, I wouldn't need to re-rail it!

If my problem was that the turn signals in my car were not turning off after I made the turn, the solution would not be to look at why I turned them on in the first place.  Why they may be de-railing is a seperate issue.  I only want to know right now why the re-railer is not re-railing.  

Again, there is nothing on the track.  No rubber, no plastic, no spikes, no dirt and no bird droppings.  There is no gauge problems unless Bachmann made all 9 of them wrong.  They are not in turns.  These are not atlas flex tracks on cork roadbed, they are new pre-formed Bachmann re-railers, already made, not modofied, not worn out.  I had nothing to do with their design, concept or construction.  I bought them, installed them and would now just like to use them.  It does this with box cars, tank cars, gondolas, flat cars and even the crane. I did about a half hour's worth of testing.  I have found that if the lead wheel of the truck is off the track, it will NOT re-rail.  If it is the rear wheel of the truck, sometimes it does re-rail, bit not always.  Does that shed any light on things.  The trucks are not binding and it doesn't matter if the car has a body mounted or truck mounted coupler. It will not re-rail any of them if the front wheel on the truck is off the track. Again, I have a video, but do not know how to load it on this forum.  Right now they are about as usefull as an automobile crossing ramp.  I'm ready to just rip every one of them out and just manually re-rail the occasional derailment, for what ever reason something may derail.  

Come on guys, give me a break here.  This has nothing to do with derailing.  Only about why it is not re-railing.   I just took a gondola, manually derailed it ever so slightly, very slowly pushed it over the re-railer and the single wheel of the forward truck entered the re-railer, slowly walked right up onto the platform, rolled right across the platform and dropped right off the other side.  It was suppose to go back onto the track and it doesn't.

I have 2 film clips of this but I don't know how to post them to this site.

I think we are going off on a tangent.  I am not questioning "why" the car de-railed.  The trains are always going slow over the re-railers.  All the track is new Bachmann EZ track with attached roadbed.  No spikes.  All joints are new and correct.  The re-railers are just not putting the cars or engines back on the track, and I can't figure out why.