Londontram Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 just finishing a scratch build of a steam loco and its running on a Hornby chassis but with the locos small boiler there's not a lot of room for the little suppressor thingy so the question is in this modern age is it necessary to have one and will the loco run OK with out it if I run the pickup wires straight to the motor terminals? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poor Old Bruce Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 IIRC the "suppressor thingy" was to counteract television interference in the 1950s, not to improve toy train (as they were then) running quality. Television has moved on a lot since then. There must be umpteen thousand kit built and modified RTR locos running quite happily without suppresors. [sit back and wait for somone to tell us otherwise]. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crosland Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 The loco will run fine without any suppression components. This comes under the EMC regualtions and so long as you don't sell locos in the course of a business then you will be OK. Hell will probably freeze over before you have any problems. As an individual you are at no risk of doing time. Even as a business you would have to seriously take the P (e.g. ignoring the inspectors ruling) to get sent down The vast majority of TV reception problems these days are due to substandard aerials and/or downleads and, as such, are the responsibility of the complainer. If, however, you are using servos for point control don't be too surprised if you have problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCB Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 I tend to use a flat brown ceramic capacitor mounted either behind the motor or connected across the PCB pickup mounting plate from the pickup wire to the chassis. I find X04 motors and the 1/2" Hornby Dublo run smoother and cooler with a capacitor and without one tend to suffer arcing across the commutator with consequent brush overheating. I just use the largest that i can squeeze in. I know a number of locos come without capacitors but curiously we had a Bachmann B1 which caused TV interference to a neighbour. Bizarre as all sorts of weird and wonderful X04 engined monstrosities didn't interfere. Personally I think some big capacitors across the chassis on the old split chassis Mainline locos would have made them more reliable. As Crossland says TV has moved on, the same H/D 0-6-2 which turned my parents TV to snow does not raise a flicker anymore. The loco will run fine without any suppression components. If, however, you are using servos for point control don't be too surprised if you have problems. However does running a Servo or Servos from a supply smoothed by a Capacitor reduce that interference? I run my points via a diode matrix from big capacitors charged from a 16V AC supply through a bridge rectifier? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Londontram Posted November 5, 2015 Author Share Posted November 5, 2015 Cut out the suppressor and wired the pickups direct to the motor, it runs fine and according to the wife there's no interference on the TV in the lounge. Thanks for the help regards Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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