Lincs Autocouplers

[philsandy]

I have recently bought some of these and fitted them to 5 wagons.

I can not get them to operate consistently. They uncouple well enough, but the main problem is some of them are uncoupling when they shouldn't, ie. when being pulled and under tension, as they pass over the permanent magnets, (under the ballast).

I have followed the instructions and re checked the critical settings ie. all hooks are 1/4" long and at 45 degrees to the buffer beam, the protruding armature/hooks are all set 2mm beyond the buffer faces (recommendation, min. 1.5 mm), and are offset by 2mm from the centre of the wagon, and parallel to the track and the wagon centre line.

I've obviously missed something, can anyone suggest anything? Thanks in advance.

[Wheatley]

I have the same issue with them, if electromagnets aren't an option try a less powerful magnet or sinking it further down into the board. Also I angle the hooks back very slightly to make coupling up more reliable which seems to help. What I haven't tried yet is adding more weight to the other end to increase the force needed to pull them down. 

 

They can be a bit temperamental but, having tried most if not all of the alternatives, the simplicity of these wins every time for me. 

[t-b-g]

I tried these couplings a while ago and suffered similar problems. I found that with steel axles and wheels, plus free running wagons, the magnets would pull wagons together enough to allow the couplings to drop. We also found that after time the hooks would develop residual magnetism to the point where they would be attracted to each other enough to haul a wagon with the couplings just touching, rather than properly engaged.

 

We got rid of most of the problems on the layout by fitting electromagnets rather than the permanent ones.

 

An additional problem we found was that with long trains, the wire would eventually start to straighten up slightly, away from the correct 90 degree bend, so those needed regular checking and resetting.

 

As with all these things, the perfect coupling has yet to be invented!

[philsandy]

56 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I tried these couplings a while ago and suffered similar problems. I found that with steel axles and wheels, plus free running wagons, the magnets would pull wagons together enough to allow the couplings to drop. We also found that after time the hooks would develop residual magnetism to the point where they would be attracted to each other enough to haul a wagon with the couplings just touching, rather than properly engaged.

 

We got rid of most of the problems on the layout by fitting electromagnets rather than the permanent ones.

 

An additional problem we found was that with long trains, the wire would eventually start to straighten up slightly, away from the correct 90 degree bend, so those needed regular checking and resetting.

 

As with all these things, the perfect coupling has yet to be invented!

 

I suspected that this might also be a problem.

I don't want to use electromagnets, but I'm sure they would improve the operation.

I really wanted these to work because they look so much better than TLC, but they seem very temperamental.

 

The Brian Kirby method on TLC is very consistent in operation and I wondered if the Lincs could be modified to work the same way.

By using 0.5mm dia. brass wire for the armature, and soldering/supergluing a steel staple dropper to it to actuate uncoupling. Because this system uses 2 magnets at each uncoupling point, the staples on each armature would be positioned further apart than the 2 hooks are, so you  would not have both armatures dropping down together when the wagons are being pulled over the magnets, only one at a time. So no unwanted uncoupling, and no residual magnetisation of the hooks.

Would this work, anyone have any thoughts on this?  

[t-b-g]

53 minutes ago, philsandy said:

 

I suspected that this might also be a problem.

I don't want to use electromagnets, but I'm sure they would improve the operation.

I really wanted these to work because they look so much better than TLC, but they seem very temperamental.

 

The Brian Kirby method on TLC is very consistent in operation and I wondered if the Lincs could be modified to work the same way.

By using 0.5mm dia. brass wire for the armature, and soldering/supergluing a steel staple dropper to it to actuate uncoupling. Because this system uses 2 magnets at each uncoupling point, the staples on each armature would be positioned further apart than the 2 hooks are, so you  would not have both armatures dropping down together when the wagons are being pulled over the magnets, only one at a time. So no unwanted uncoupling, and no residual magnetisation of the hooks.

Would this work, anyone have any thoughts on this?  

 

I can't comment on that method as I haven't tried it. I went down the homemade spratt and winkle type route, using a fine wire (top E guitar string) for the hooks and a split pin for a dropper. I still get a very occasional unwanted uncoupling if a loco stutters as the dropper is over the magnet and they buffer up but they have proved to be very reliable, even over permanent magnets.

 

I use the magnets that Wizard Models supply. I did experiment with other magnets but found that it was too easy to get one that was too strong or not strong enough and the Wizard ones are just right. I have also used electromagnets with these and get as near 100% reliability as I have seen. Anything not going right is down to the operator missing the right spot or letting go of the button for the magnet too soon rather than any failing in the coupling. The one downside is that they are single ended but that is not a problem in my layout designs.

 

The "safety loop" stops the dropper digging into the ballast.

 

 

  

Edited November 1, 2021 by t-b-g
add extra photo