Cobalt Point motors

[WIMorrison]

Is laying direct onto plywood quiet?

[Knuckles]

Nope, sounds like a stampede.  I like the rumbling,railways are noisy.

 

Have used various underlays many times, I find them often more trouble than its worth in most cases, warping and such like.  Have always had more success with either wood underlay or non.  If you want a ballast shoulder more needed but as most this layout is not in open country not bothered.

 

 

 

Anyone got thoughts on the DCC Tortoises, the Smails??  They are available, damn expensive though.  Not wanting to do servo's as don't really underatand them, just want quick n eaay instillation.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Knuckles

[DCCconcepts]

On 24/04/2020 at 10:48, bigP said:

 

Covid has nothing to do with the lack of CobaltDip availability, they’ve been almost non existent since Jan 2019.

 

At Warley ‘Mr DCC Concepts’ was explaining their absence was due to change of supplier for the motor.  Believe the original supplier wanted an unrealistic minimum order, so DCC Concepts went elsewhere rather than being held to ransom!

 

 

 

As above, there was an issue with the internal motor supply that caused issues last year.

This has been resolved.

The last batch of 4000 or so that arrived in January 2020 sold out with 2 weeks - catching up with back orders and also new orders once people learned that they were available again.

 

The current batch of 4000 has been delayed by Covid-19, but isn't too far away.

Note - due to increased demand with people having more time to build their railway (probably because of Covid-19), we have almost pre-sold/allocated all of this batch!

 

The DCC Concepts Team.

 

 

 

 

[PaulRhB]

This might be useful to people as I can’t find and full dimensions on the net, only for the top mounting plate. 

 

I’ve also been experimenting with using them on their side after a friend did it and been pleased with the result. 

you can also add a loop into the wire to soften the throw when used on its side. Note the middle of the top row has the linkage at the end. 

[DY444]

I have 72 points on my layout.  71 of these date from when the layout was built nearly 20 years ago and all use tortoises which have been 100% reliable in terms of switching (I don't use the c/o contacts).  The 72nd point was added a couple of years ago when I made a slight change to the fiddle yard and I used a Cobalt on this.  Compared with the tortoises it is very noisy and the current consumption is higher.  It has worked ok so far but it just has the feel to me of not being as well engineered as the tortoise.

[PaulRhB]

32 minutes ago, DY444 said:

these date from when the layout was built nearly 20 years ago and all use tortoises which have been 100% reliable

Yes they are very good and the only failures I know of have been the cases cracking due to fatigue from the stall position. This can be repaired by cutting power mid throw to remove the stress and then with a plasticard repair patch welded over the crack, with your solvent of choice, and left to harden for a day. 

The Cobalt is slightly noisier but also slightly smaller so it can be worth the compromise especially as the Dcc version is around £10 cheaper than the ‘Smail’.
 

With the side mounting it suddenly occurred to me that by using two layers of the sticky pad at the connector end I could counter some of the rise in the operating wire! It barely increases the size as the flange at the other end is already wider. 
Exaggerated pic to explain it, the red is the arc of the wire and the yellow the baseboard. 

 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by PaulRhB

[DY444]

3 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Yes they are very good and the only failures I know of have been the cases cracking due to fatigue from the stall position. This can be repaired by cutting power mid throw to remove the stress and then with a plasticard repair patch welded over the crack, with your solvent of choice, and left to harden for a day. 

The Cobalt is slightly noisier but also slightly smaller so it can be worth the compromise especially as the Dcc version is around £10 cheaper than the ‘Smail’.
 

With the side mounting it suddenly occurred to me that by using two layers of the sticky pad at the connector end I could counter some of the rise in the operating wire! It barely increases the size as the flange at the other end is already wider. 
Exaggerated pic to explain it, the red is the arc of the wire and the yellow the baseboard. 

 

 

 

 

I haven't had any cracking issues however I don't use mine the way you are "supposed to".  I cut the power after 4 seconds so the time they spend stalled is small.

[PaulRhB]

20 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

I haven't had any cracking issues however I don't use mine the way you are "supposed to".  I cut the power after 4 seconds so the time they spend stalled is small.

It’s not common but a friend had a couple go after intensive use over  20 years on his large layout. Nice thing is they were easy to repair  If the circuitron weren’t so much more expensive for the dcc version I’d have continued with theirs to be honest. But as it’s about 45% more on top I tried the cobalts and over 8 years I’ve only had two that failed when they were fairly new due to defects on the circuit board and they were repaired under warranty and been trouble free since.