DutyDruid

OK, I may have put something slightly misleading in my original post by saying that we were using coils of our own making. So far we've fitted up 4 uncoupling magnets, two of them use solenoids that come from Kadee's own electromagnetic uncoupling kit and the other two are our "roll your own" solenoids which are electrically identical to the Kadee ones. The only magnetic difference will be that the official ones are wound on some sort of nylon former while ours are built around a styrene tube and sides, but I doubt the magnetic permeability of styrene is sufficiently different from the permeability of the nylon to make any discernible difference. However, typing this is causing the principles of magnetic theory from A Level physics 44 years ago to swirl around in my mind and I am wondering if you might have a point with the magnets (even Kadee's own coils) being too strong. Physically, the difference above the baseboard is that instead of using Kadee's massive plates which must be 50mm + long we simply have a pair of 20mm plates sticking up vertically just inboard of the rails (very similar concept to a pair of rare earth magnets between the rails). What is running through my mind is that in the Kadee "official" unit there is an amount of magnetic flux being pushed through the air gap on 50mm long plates, we are pushing the same amount of flux through a 20mm air gap (a 40% smaller gap). Higher flux density, stronger (too strong) fields, that might explain some of the things we've seen. I have spent some time during the week dismantling those wagons I can get into easily and replacing their ferrous based weights with lead and it seems to have made some difference but not as much as we had hoped - and I didn't manage to get a photograph of top side of one of our uncouplers before the layout got crated up again (layout out again this weekend). I'll let you all know how the layout and couplings behave early next week. If anyone who is following this will be local to Romsey this weekend do stop by and see us and the layout, Crossfield Hall, Romsey, Sat 1030 - 1700, Sunday 1000 - 1630. Elliott

Thanks for that. Bizarrely: On my desk at this very moment a layout data sheet for Camel Quay! I think I saw you in Sheffield about 15 months ago, you are/were in the queue for an invite to Fareham RailEx so I had better find out who the new owner is! Could you contact him/her and pass my details on please? Back to the couplings. I do remember watching CQ operating and being impressed that it did work so smoothly. If you haven't modified the wagons (i.e. changed the weights) I have no idea why we are having so much trouble with them, unless it is that the shape of the field the electromagnetic coil throws out is such that the weight effectively distorts it too far away from being truly transverse to the rails and so stopping the trip wires from throwing properly. Our "Shed Club" group are meeting this morning and I am going to go down to the Club to mod as many of our SWB wagons as I can to have lead weights rather than iron/steel ones.

So, I posted in this forum a couple of days ago about having a problem with what appeared to be residual magnetism in a coupler on stock on Nictun Borrud, asking if anyone had encountered a similar problem. Having now made time to watch a number of videos in this thread - including Coachmann's - and having spent some time yesterday experimenting I can report the following: A pair of coaches and a locomotive always works well when uncoupling at the station. Short wheel base wagons always seem to be a nightmare - couplings just won't actuate. There is indeed a problem with residual magnetism in short wheel base wagons fitted with Kadee couplers. The source of this residual magnetism is actually the weight block in the floor of the wagon.After a lot of faffing around last evening we removed the manufacturer's weights from the floor of a couple of wagons and everything started working as per the book I probably ought to add that we we aren't using rare earth magnets, we're using "wind your own" electromagnets that are based electrically on the Kadee design but have much smaller surface protrusions between the rails (will post a photo when I get a chance). Also, historically we have tried using rare earth magnets on a test bed with Kadee couplers but gave up because every time the loco uncoupled from the wagon and moved away the wagon would shoot forward and try to recouple. If you weren't quick off the mark uncoupling just wasn't possible. Now, Coachmann says he is intending to switch from the big Kadee magnets I can see in his video to rare earth magnets but I think he might run up against the same problem that we found on our test bed. So, the question for the panel is this: Is there anybody following this topic thread that is successfully using rare earth magnets to uncouple short wheel base wagons like the ones seen in Coachmann's video? And if so, what - if any - modifications did you make to the wagons to get it to work? Thanks Elliott

Hi All I have been doing some "upgrading" to the Fareham Club's layout Nictun Borrud http://fareham-mrc.org.uk/layouts/nictun-borrud/ and have been experimenting with Kadee couplings in remote uncoupling mode - I have to say with some initial success. However, we've taken the layout to the show at Arundel today, for the first time with all the goods wagons fitted up - and we've noticed something really odd happening with a couple of the pick-up goods wagons. Problem: Initially we thought a couple of the trip pins appear to have "retained magnetism". What we saw was that when two wagons came close together, just short of being close enough to couple, the trip pins were being attracted towards each other and we eventually tied it down to one particular coupling trip pin which seemed to still be magnetic some minutes after being exposed to the electromagnets. Anyone come across this problem before? Anyone have any ideas about how to fix it (or at least stop it happening again)? Thanks Elliott

Hi Guys My local model shop has just moved into Ammo Paints by Mig Jemenez (www.migjimenez.com) as a replacement for another brand of acrylic paints that has been causing them a lot of problems. Talking to some "experts" on the exhibition and demonstration circuit has told me that this is a really good range of paints BUT it's colour names are all geared towards war gaming and military modelling and, as you might guess, I'm interested in railway modelling colours. Great! Decent Paint! However, I have a minor colour perception issue (not colour blind, the exact opposite, I'm CP1, I perceive many more colours and colour variations than the average observer would) so I find looking at colour charts and making educated guesses about which colour to use to paint, say, a 16T mineral wagon actually very difficult. Exam question: Does anybody know of (or have) a table of equivalent colours for the various railway livery colours we would commonly use? Let's say fitted goods bauxite, unfitted goods grey, for early BR era and equivalent colours for the grouping era companies. TIA Cheers Elliott

Hi Mike I finally got round to stopping by this thread. Looks good, keep us posted. Elliott

I think a few folk @FarehamMRC might be interested as well Dave! Elliott

Here's hoping I can escape from the demonstration zone long enough for a decent look! Elliott