Flickering lights?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I bought our first locomotive, and ran it yesterday with a couple of Spectrum passenger cars that already had interior lights. We noticed that the lights keep flickering while it's running, getting brighter as we increase the throttle. We are running them on Atlas snap track (4 foot oval) connected to a MRC Tech II controller. Is this flickering normal? And when we get a Digitrax Zephyr, is this flickering going to continue?

TIA for your help. [:D]

Cindy

[Anonymous]

yes it's normal, it may or may not continue with a DCC system, but the lights will always be at full brightness. You can counter both of these by buying a voltage regulator (keeps a constant 6 volts to the lights), and soldering it inbetween the passenger cars pickups and the lights.

If your interested in that solution, let me know and i'll refer you to a few sites that show how to build a regulator.

Jay.

[Anonymous]

Jay

Sure am interested in a regulator. The flickering is very annoying.

Thanks
Cindy

[Anonymous]

Cindy,

Look at this site: http://www.mrollins.com/pwrsp3.html, it explains how to build one. the part numbers for a few of them are off or discontinued items, but you can find parts that do the exact same thing.

You won't need the one saying "only if supplying an integrated circuit", since it's only for the lights in the cars.

Hope that helps, others may pipe in with other ways to do it, or other additions to this (there's been multiple topics on this, here as well as on the Atlas DCC forum).

Jay.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by NTDN

Cindy,

Look at this site: http://www.mrollins.com/pwrsp3.html, it explains how to build one. the part numbers for a few of them are off or discontinued items,

Jay.

Remove the coma , in back of html in the url and it will go.

[Anonymous]

As Jay mentioned, the flickering may or may not continue with DCC, but the lights will always be at full intensity.

The flickering is due to the sometimes intermittent contact between the rails and the pickups. So the better your track and pick-ups, the less flickering.

Now you could call the flickering "protoypical" because every passanger train I have been on has some flickering or time when the lights are completely out [:)]. If you want flicker free, you'll have to install "on-board" power, like a battery pack. There have been a few good articles in MR on how to do this.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys!

It didn't dawn on me that this could be prototypical. [:I]

The current track we are using is Atlas code 100 snap track. We bought the starter pack just to see if our new Rivarossi Heisler would run. When we build our layout, we wanted to get the code 83 flex track. Is this a better track or should we go with Unitrack?

TIA

Cindy

[Anonymous]

There is more info on this site (and other forums (fora?)) about which track to use than you'd ever care to read [;)].

Having said that, the short answer you are most likely to get is that Code 83 flex from Atlas is a fine product, and more "prototypical" than Code 100. You will also find that flex track is more versatile - you are limited by fixed radii, for example, with any sectional track including Unitrack. 'Course, with flex, you will have to put some sort of roadbed (or not), ballast, etc, etc... and UniTrack is a fine roadbed track... Did I say this was a short answer? [;)]

Try a search (the button's in the blue bar near the top of the page) and see what turns up!

Andrew

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MiniCG

Thanks guys!

It didn't dawn on me that this could be prototypical. [:I]

The current track we are using is Atlas code 100 snap track. We bought the starter pack just to see if our new Rivarossi Heisler would run. When we build our layout, we wanted to get the code 83 flex track. Is this a better track or should we go with Unitrack?

TIA

Cindy

What track you use is your personal preference based upon your experience with track laying and how realistic you want your layout to be.

The "Code" indicates the height of the rail in inches. Code 100 = 0.100 inches, Code 83 = 0.083 inches, Code 70 = 0.070, Code 55 = 0.055 and Code 40 = 0.040.

On real railroads, rail is measured in how many pounds one yard of the rail weighs. Today, most mainline laid with 132lb rail. Sidings and lesser used branch lines will be laid with lighter rail as it is less expensive, often the lighter rail was previously used at another location that was either upgraded to heavier rail, or abandoned and the rail taken up.

In HO scale, Code 70 is approximately 100 lb rail. Code 83 equates to 132lb rail. Code 100 is oversized, but it is used often for model railroads due in part because some manufacturers produce locomotives and cars with long oversized flanges on the wheels. These long flanges will hit the ties on small rail sizes. Any HO scale wheels that meet the NMRA RP-25 profile will operate on most any rail size. Your new Rivarossi Heisler has RP-25 wheels according to Walters's catalog, so you should have no problem on smaller rail if you choose to use it. Note: If rail of different sizes is connected together, you will have to use an adapter joiner or track due to the height difference of the rails.

Unitrack is Kato's brand of combined snaptrack and roadbed. There are others such as Atlas's True Track and Bachmann's EZ-Track. All of these use code 100 rail. If you do not want to lay seperate roadbed and track, or you want to quickly set up a temporary layout, this is a good product to use. However, at present, Unitrack, Truetrack and EZ-Track cannot be intermixed due to different designs in the locking mechanism. Regular track (without roadbed) can be intermixed freely among manufacturers, and there is more variety of ready-made track components available.

Heisler locomotives are powerful slow speed locomotives designed to negotiate rough track and steep grades. They were used mostly on logging or mining railroads, that would eventually be taken up and relaid in another direction as the trees were all cut down, or the mine played out.. These railroads would typically use very light rail to keep the expense down.

Ultimately it is your choice. I would however, recommend that you use nickel silver rail as opposed to brass or steel. Steel, though realistic, can rust, and brass will oxidize requiring frequent cleanings. Please note that Bachmann EZ-Track with black roadbed uses steel rail, whereby the EZ-Track with gray roadbed is nickel-silver.

Hope this helps,

Happy modeling!

Dale B.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MiniCG
It didn't dawn on me that this could be prototypical. [:I]

Yes it's prototypical, but not to the extremes you see it running your trains. Besides constant flickering degrades the life of the bulb, thus you'll need tyo change them faster than if you apply constant voltage to them.

If you want to flicker the lights in a manner more prototypical, you can install a cheap (is there such a thing) FX DCC decoder in the passenger car, assuming you run DCC. this would allow you to turn on and off the lights as you wanted to.

Jay.

[Anonymous]

Jay, Cindy...

When I wrote "prototypical", I included the quotation marks, meaning that yes, the lights flicker on the prototype, but it is certainly not as drastic, nor is it for the same reason...

Jay has given a good reason to avoid flickering, as changing those tiny bulbs can be a real pain. If you get your Zephyr system, it certainly is easy to have an FX decoder for lights as Jay mentioned.

Andrew