Is it worth me looking at a new controller?

[The Johnster]

Picked up the new Gaugemaster handheld this avo from Lord & Butler, and wired it in after tea, simple job but I managed to get the polarity reversed, and had to swap the track feed wires around.  I have spent most of the evening testing it with all my locos, and am delighted.  All of them run better, and some of them ran very well to begin with.  In particular, 2761, a Hornby 2721 with the sprung rear axle and a bit jumpy, is now perfectly well behaved as a lady of her advanced years should be.  I am particularly please with this as, if some of you have been following the exploits of Cwmdimbath's loco department (and you really should get out more if you are), you will recall that I picked this little loco up for a fiver at Lord & Butler's a while back.  She was on offer in the secondhand cabinets for £35, and as the only genuine Tondu loco I have, I had to have her.  Test running on Peter's little test diorama showed a loco that ran like a 3 legged dog, with different size legs pointing in different directions, and, as there was no other 2721 in the shop at the time, Peter was going to throw her out.

 

Reasoning that if she was running that badly, but running, whatever was wrong should at least be easy to detect, and possibly fix, I offered him a fiver as seen, and was a bit discouraged at the eagerness with which he snatched it out of my grubbys, but on inspection when I got home, she was just gunged up.  Somebody had decided she needed lubricating, and as that hadn't cured her problems, that she needed more lubricating, and then more, and so on.  A strip down and thorough clean in my favourite degunger, Maplin's Spray Can Switch Cleaner, and a bit of fettling and we had a runner, and after a bit more fettling, sparing lubrication, and removal of the traction tyres, an acceptable runner but, as I say, not good at low speeds or smooth starts and stops in comparison to my more modern locos, or my early 80s vintage Airfix large prairie either.  The new handheld has transformed her into a loco that can take her turn with the pickup goods as well as the miner's workman's she was restricted to hitherto. 

 

I am pleased with the feel of the new controller as well.  It doesn't look as if any attention has been paid to the ergonomic aspect of it's design, just a plain box with a knob, a centre off switch, and an led, but it sits very well in your hand and your thumb naturally falls on to the knob, giving a very natural control which I have no doubt will very soon become second nature to me.  I am already enjoying the very considerable extra freedom the 1.5 meter cable is giving me; again, didn't think it would make much difference being so short, but I can roll my office chair up and down the scenic area quite effortlessly with it.  The ancient Airfix prairie is just as noisy as ever, but I can live with that.

 

It was well worth buying the new controller.  I now have more freedom of movement, and the option of a 'long distance' view of the trains sitting on the bed (me sitting on the bed, not the trains, that is).  I now have the level of control, smooth starts and stops, and steady slow running that were the purpose of the exercise, and the new one seems to tolerate my hamfistedness a little more; things just seem lower geared if that makes sense.  

 

Thank you all for your advice and input, including sorting out the mess in my head surrounding the proper meanings of 'feedback', 'compensation', and 'inertia'.  Anyone who's seen me before breakfast will confirm that I am an expert in the field of inertia, but that's something slightly else!

[Skippy]

Excellent result - your description of how your locos performed with the Gaugemaster closely matches what I've found. Everything, from my new(ish) Bachmann O4 to my father's Wrenn and HD locos runs beautifully.

 

 

The ancient Airfix prairie is just as noisy as ever

That brings back memories, I can almost hear that grumbly grind from here

 

Cheers,

 

 - James.

[The Johnster]

I rather like it; a bit like a 37.  The running is first class, which means I can forgive a lot; if she wants to grumble, let 'er!

[Sun VI]

From post #11:

'... DCC is a 'when I win the lottery' project for me, though it's value is undoubted; I simply cannot afford it and would have to convert the whole fleet at once as well as investing in the control kit, perhaps 5 or 6 hundred beer tokens.  I'd like it, it is clearly better, but there was a mix up in the maternity ward when I was born and I got sent home with the working class people.  Any of my old bosses will tell you that I am genetically suited to a life of complete indolence and idleness, and suspect that I am in fact really Royalty, or at least nobility, if only the truth were to come out.  I have the weak chin to prove it!  ...'

 

Dear Johnster,

I was deeply moved by this heart-rending account of the troubles you experienced as a mere babe, and the lasting blight cast over your life.  I have news, however, and I believe that rather than being a member of the Royal family, you are in fact of native American descent.  I have (almost) incontrovertible proof that you are from Norway House Cree Nation, Manitoba, Canada.  Please see the attached from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41128368

How!

With kind regards

Sun VI

[The Johnster]

Hmm.  No, I'm sticking with the Royalty or at least Nobility theory.  I worked on the railway with a bloke who claimed to be part Iriquois Native American, on the grounds that his French Canadian grandfather had been a dispatcher for Canadian Pacific at Kamloops, and had married an Iriquois girl on the basis that that was the only sort they had out there in those days.  He looked the part, with that profile and nose, and could produce a truly blood curdling war cry that made you hang on to your scalp!  I'm fairly certain that, if I'd had that sort of ancestry, he'd have spotted it and pointed it out.  

 

I have never felt any desire to follow migrating buffalo, live in tepees, do war or rain dances, or paint my face.  I have, however, what I believe to be an innate genetic disposition to order peasants about, not do much, and feel perfectly at ease with being waited on hand foot and finger.

 

Very pleased with the new controller, by the way!

Edited September 2, 2017 by The Johnster

[kevinlms]

Picked up the new Gaugemaster handheld this avo from Lord & Butler, and wired it in after tea, simple job but I managed to get the polarity reversed, and had to swap the track feed wires around.  I have spent most of the evening testing it with all my locos, and am delighted.  All of them run better, and some of them ran very well to begin with.  In particular, 2761, a Hornby 2721 with the sprung rear axle and a bit jumpy, is now perfectly well behaved as a lady of her advanced years should be.  I am particularly please with this as, if some of you have been following the exploits of Cwmdimbath's loco department (and you really should get out more if you are), you will recall that I picked this little loco up for a fiver at Lord & Butler's a while back.  She was on offer in the secondhand cabinets for £35, and as the only genuine Tondu loco I have, I had to have her.  Test running on Peter's little test diorama showed a loco that ran like a 3 legged dog, with different size legs pointing in different directions, and, as there was no other 2721 in the shop at the time, Peter was going to throw her out.

 

Reasoning that if she was running that badly, but running, whatever was wrong should at least be easy to detect, and possibly fix, I offered him a fiver as seen, and was a bit discouraged at the eagerness with which he snatched it out of my grubbys, but on inspection when I got home, she was just gunged up.  Somebody had decided she needed lubricating, and as that hadn't cured her problems, that she needed more lubricating, and then more, and so on.  A strip down and thorough clean in my favourite degunger, Maplin's Spray Can Switch Cleaner, and a bit of fettling and we had a runner, and after a bit more fettling, sparing lubrication, and removal of the traction tyres, an acceptable runner but, as I say, not good at low speeds or smooth starts and stops in comparison to my more modern locos, or my early 80s vintage Airfix large prairie either.  The new handheld has transformed her into a loco that can take her turn with the pickup goods as well as the miner's workman's she was restricted to hitherto. 

 

I am pleased with the feel of the new controller as well.  It doesn't look as if any attention has been paid to the ergonomic aspect of it's design, just a plain box with a knob, a centre off switch, and an led, but it sits very well in your hand and your thumb naturally falls on to the knob, giving a very natural control which I have no doubt will very soon become second nature to me.  I am already enjoying the very considerable extra freedom the 1.5 meter cable is giving me; again, didn't think it would make much difference being so short, but I can roll my office chair up and down the scenic area quite effortlessly with it.  The ancient Airfix prairie is just as noisy as ever, but I can live with that.

 

It was well worth buying the new controller.  I now have more freedom of movement, and the option of a 'long distance' view of the trains sitting on the bed (me sitting on the bed, not the trains, that is).  I now have the level of control, smooth starts and stops, and steady slow running that were the purpose of the exercise, and the new one seems to tolerate my hamfistedness a little more; things just seem lower geared if that makes sense.  

 

Thank you all for your advice and input, including sorting out the mess in my head surrounding the proper meanings of 'feedback', 'compensation', and 'inertia'.  Anyone who's seen me before breakfast will confirm that I am an expert in the field of inertia, but that's something slightly else!

Great news. Now you can go back and tell your supplier that his advise may have been correct on earlier controllers, but your experience is quite different.

[The Johnster]

Which it is.  But Peter was only trying to give me the best advice he knew, and I will not be too harsh on him, just tell him I'm delighted with it and that I have experienced no problems on my tiny BLT with short runs and light loads.  Gaugemaster's own advice is to not use it with coreless motors 'such as' Portescap or 'certain low quality N gauge motors', which I am fairly satisfied does not apply to any of my models.

[GeoffAlan]

Your layout would benefit from a simulating controller. I have a Gaugemaster Twin DS (I'm pretty sure they make a single version.) with the simulation switched on it gives a decent impression of gradual acceleration and a very good simulation of coasting to a stop. The Brake control does what the name describes. With the simulation switched off, it works as a 'normal' controller. 

[The Johnster]

I have always thought that simulation is a brilliant idea on larger layouts; my issue would be that there is so little room for a train to get up to a reasonable running speed by the time it gets to the scenic break bridge from it's starting point in the fiddle yard about 2 feet away, or to smoothly stop from the similar distance after the last vehicle has disappeared under the bridge in the opposite direction, that I would have to do those parts of the move under 'direct' control (the fiddle yard roads have isolated section 'auto stops' at their far ends anyway), and switch the simulation on mid-run.  Not that this is particularly onerous, but I probably just wouldn't bother with it most of the time.  

 

I like the idea of starting a train off under simulation though; setting the controller to the maximum speed I want to achieve and just sitting back and watching the loco smoothly take up the strain and accelerate gently away, knowing that the auto stop will take care of it while I do something else.  But in practice I am quite happy to do it directly, gradually increasing the power, letting her settle to the new speed for a second or so, and then increasing it a little more.  So things will probably stay as they are on the controller front for the foreseeable!