DCC Concepts HO/OO Rolling Road “Tweak”

[boxbrownie]

Recently decided to upgrade my ancient home made RR rollers and bought the DCC Concepts multi scale pack, although it’ll likely only ever be OO use.

 

This is no criticism of DCC Concepts but I found with my poor dexterity and tremor each roller is so light I found it very difficult to adjust when putting a Loco on as I kept knocking/moving the rollers away from where I wanted then because they are so light.

 

I thought about it and found some small Neo magnets which fit into the “3rd rail groove” which is only on the 16.5mm spacers, I use a stretch of Trix integral ballast track mounted on ply as my rolling road base, I glued a length of 1/8th” iron/steel (not stainless!) rod to the underneath of the plastic ballast down the centre line, the magnets I picked and the rod produce just enough attraction to keep the rollers in place but can be moved very easily, they will only just cling on when the track is inverted, a shake and they fall off, so just enough to keep them in place and upright while adjusting them.

 

The magnets (and rod) were glued into the groove using good old Bostic and works great.

 

Its made setting the road up so much easier for me.

[mezzoman253]

What a great idea. I too had the same problem having just recently got a set.

 

Rob

[Ron Ron Ron]

A great idea.

I’ll have a look at adopting that mod myself.

 

.

[DCCconcepts]

Hi David,

Nice solution.

 

We've already incorporated magnets in our 0 gauge rolling road and we're already looking at ways to include the magnet in the smaller gauge sets on future production runs.

 

We're trying to include the magnet in the middle of the 16.5mm unit, but have to allow for third rail users. (The solution may be two smaller magnets either side of centre).

 

Incidentally, stainless steel can be acquired in grades that are ferritic and/or martensitic (i.e magnetic)

 

Best Regards.

The DCCconcepts Team

[boxbrownie]

18 minutes ago, DCCconcepts said:

Hi David,

Nice solution.

 

We've already incorporated magnets in our 0 gauge rolling road and we're already looking at ways to include the magnet in the smaller gauge sets on future production runs.

 

We're trying to include the magnet in the middle of the 16.5mm unit, but have to allow for third rail users. (The solution may be two smaller magnets either side of centre).

 

Incidentally, stainless steel can be acquired in grades that are ferritic and/or martensitic (i.e magnetic)

 

Best Regards.

The DCCconcepts Team

Hi, Yes but I just used some steel rod I had in stock, it would be a good idea to have magnets fitted from new as although your rollers are really excellent they are just so light I had terrible trouble when placing a Loco on them and most of the time I knocked a set over while adjusting (a lot down to my poor dexterity and tremor).

 

If I had more time (and some in stock, and the inclination  ) I might have used a thin strip of steel down the centre line of the sleepers to get the magnets a bit closer, I just looked at your 7mm rollers and see the etched “planking” used, I like that.