Thermal overload protection on motor control board?

[thor]

Having got my 4-4-2 to circulate happily at a crawl I left it running like that for an hour or so and it suddenly stopped dead though the headlight still worked. I thought that the reverser had got a spike so I punched it to no avail. The headlight stayed on, the whistling tender still worked but no movement.

This happened shortly after the loco had been derailed by an errant cat so I thought perhaps a wire had shifted and shorted out but couldnt see any sign of that. After I finished examining it, I put it back on the rails and it ran fine!

So I wondered, does the circuit board have its own thermal protection maybe?

[Anonymous]

Like so much of todays electronically controlled machinery ( be it cars, computers or circuits in toy trains ) once an errant signal or electrical interuption occurs the mechanism goes into freeze mode. Like rebooting a computer, all that is usually required is to shut down the power for a few seconds then fire it back up. This resets the engine back to running mode again. This is my very limited take on the new stuff produced these days.

Bruce Webster

[wrmcclellan]

Thor, no thermal protection on this unit.

As Bruce speculates, likely the electronic e-unit saw the power interruption and got lost.

Once you remove power long enough, the e-unit resets itself to start in forward.

Regards,
Roy

[Anonymous]

Thor: Do tou still have the Horsman Beard? I produce AC and DC trolleys using High quality industrual grade motors, They are can motors using rectifiers for AC operation. They are equipped with internal thermal control,which acts exactly as you describe. The motor will shut down from overheating and will not restart untill cooled sufficiently for the reed to reconnect. There is nothing wrong with your train or the control board. The practice od long running at very slow speed will exacerbate this function of thermal controll and may eventually destroy the reed switch in the motor.so I suggest you limit the practice somewhat, so the heat control function is not destroyed in your motor. Just moderate your low speed operation a little and You shoule=d be fine.
Walt Cameron