Grades on layout's

[Greg Elmassian]

 Lumpy, I use plenty of locomotives... on my 50 car freights I use 3 Aristo E8's which have 4 motors each, and Aristo motors have integral fans.

I also use 6 USAT F3 units, or a 4-5 unit consist of PA's... 

I live in san diego near the coast, so it rarely gets more than high 80's. If I lived in the desert, I might need more cooling, but normally it's the electronics that overheats.

I run DCC.

 

Regards, Greg

[cabbage]

I suppose it depends on what type of motors you use and the circumstances that you operate them in... All of my electric powered locomotives are battery operated and I use motors with self cooling fans fitted to them. I have never noticed any real heating in either the motors or the modulators for them. Here in the cold wet UK, track power is not the norm so heating effects of low voltage high amperage circuits have to be taken into account during the design of a loco. Normally I use 12 Volts for the line voltage and this gives me a fairly easily usable current of around 4 Amperes before things begin to get "warm". The I squared R heating effect of high current systems in locos is something we have to watch here in the UK. I have been accused by friends, (quite rightly I think), of liking "bloody big motors" in my locos but I have never had one stall on me yet(!) The last loco I built had three motors of 12 volt rating and 4 Amperes current with a 1,800gramme centimetre torque rating, each of which was self cooled and I also had cooling fans blowing over them. I had to cool 144 Watts of power -or nearly SIX TIMES the power of the soldering iron used to put them together. This is a Gauge '3' locomotive and weighs in at around 20Kg... regards ralph

[LUMPY G]

 Thank's guy's  for the come back!

 I will be powering mine with the Bridgewerks Magnum 220 RM thank's to the Sun Set Station
casino here in Vegas, I have a ways to go before I can run .

I'm colecting all the info I can from you guy's that have operating RR's and can help
us new comber's to the hobby much apreciated!!

                                    LUMPY G
 

[ttrigg]

Lumpy: Grades can impact operations in many ways. The overhead system you speak of most probably was run constantly. Any constant operation even 0.0% grades will cause engines to heat up. Being an overhead system and that room heat rises to the ceiling I’m sure prevented normal cooling. Normal operations in the yard are not so constant, you will be stopping to pick up passengers, wait on a siding to allow the express freight to pass, and so forth. I for one would not be too concerned. In my case I have an auto-reversing trolley line up to the top of the falls that is on "constant run." The grade on the bridge varies from 12% to 17.5% (yes I said twelve to seventeen and half) but since only the one trolley (or "work truck") is on that line, and the timer gives a three minute run to the top, a 1½ minute wait at the top and bottom of the run, there is ample time for cooling. The number of cars being pulled have just as much to do with engine overheating as the grade, so long as you keep within the normal grades, unlike me.

[dwbeckett]

I have a 1.5% grade on half of my RR and I can run a FA/FB/FA with 7 Aristocraft streamliners intow, most are lite, running at a constant 85MPH (scale) using track power. The engins dont overheat the power supply does. Bigger is Better I use a Brigewerks 15 Amp....NO problems

Dave

[LUMPY G]

I was on Gregs web looking at his photos (nice web) and thought I read he had a portian that was 3.5
percent grade!.

If you were pulling that with long trains would it heat the engines or affect the engines over time?.

 The reason I ask I helped with the over head at the St Aubin store in Vegas, we wound up with a slight grade rise on one side and after a while the one set of engines would shut down untill they cooled .

I dont recall the make of the engines but it wasn't any where near a 2 percent rise they never figured it out they checked track conection's and that sort of stuff.

I will have a portion of my layout that will be 2 percent or a little less about 62 ft of a 125 ft straight away on a double main line which means one of the trains will alway's be pulling the grade, I will be running USA and Aristo.

                            LUMPY G