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Wheels, what size to use?
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<p>[quote user="rckingsnorth"]</p> <p><em>Wheels, what size to use???</em></p> <p>When replacing wheel sets, axle length can be important.</p> <p>Intermountain is 1.002" long (all lengths are +/-)</p> <p>Bachmann is 1.012"</p> <p>Kadee is 1.017"</p> <p>Bowser is 1.025"</p> <p>Excessive endplay (length too short) will cause the car to sit lower and tilt from side to side. Too long, and the wheels bind.</p> <p>The old Athearn blue box trucks used 1.040". The Kadee 1.017" seem to work OK, perhaps because of the rounded axle ends.</p> <p>You will find significant variations in a single manufacture's trucks, probably based on the China source. I test the supplied wheel set for end play, and then test different replacements for best fit.</p> <div style="clear:both;"> </div> <p>[/quote]</p> <p>This is a very good point to make. </p> <p>I recently bought a whole bunch of code 88 Intermountain Wheelsets (they were on sale) to replace the code 110s on some cars. Ive discovered that they dont fit on Atlas cars, so I will need to find another source (NWSL has different axle lengths I belive).</p> <p>From my memory, I did not have any trouble installing Intermountain wheelsets in Accurail cars.</p> <p>Anywho, for resistor wheelsets, you will need to discuss that with your club. They likely have an exact standard stating the resistor value and part number required to achieve occupancy detection. </p> <p>Generally speaking you will want in the ball park of 5k-10k ohms of per car to acheive single car detection (depending on the type of block detector and wiring configuration). Again this is a question for the club. If they specify two resistors per car, then put two resistors per car. </p> <p>I can tell you that I know a guy who did two 20kohm resistors per car and a single car did not trip the circuit (not sure what detectors he was using). It took him 1.5 cars (or three trucks/3 resistors) to get occupancy. Two 20kohm resistors on one car equals 10kohms of resistance per car. </p> <p>I will likely use around 15kohm on 2 trucks. Im preping for this by only painting the outer axels on the cars, leaving the inner sets bare metal on the back and axel.</p> <p>If your club is requiring you to install resistors on cars, they should have a set method for doing so and someone should be able to teach you.</p> <p> </p>
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