Old controllers, new loco's = problem?

[Adam Burton]

Hi all. Being new to 009 I bought a Bachmann Baldwin and a few wagons n track. I dug out my old h and m duette,connected the wires and crossed fingers turned the control knob. It worked perfectly. My question is,did I really need to buy the gaugemaster handheld controller?

[andy1878]

Hi

Adam asked:
Being new to 009 I bought a Bachmann Baldwin and a few wagons n track. I dug out my old h and m duette,connected the wires and crossed fingers turned the control knob. It worked perfectly. My question is,did I really need to buy the gaugemaster handheld controller?

Personally I would discard any old controller of this vintage.
Because your old H&M is likely to be life expired some time soon. Does it stand up to modern electrical safety standards? if the plug has no plastic sheaths on the Live and neutral pins it is unlikely to pass a PAT (Portable Appliance Test). PAT testing may be a PITA but its for sound reasons. Is the risk worth it?

So my answer is YES.

However I would look at buying a DCC starter kit (NCE Powercab and the like) a sound equipped DCC decoder to suit the Baldwin.......

Cue thread drift into more DC v DCC

[Graeme Dunbar]

Hi all. Being new to 009 I bought a Bachmann Baldwin and a few wagons n track. I dug out my old h and m duette,connected the wires and crossed fingers turned the control knob. It worked perfectly. My question is,did I really need to buy the gaugemaster handheld controller?

Alluding to what Andy says, even assuming the controller is in perfect working order - in which case it might be suitable for use with locomotives of a similar vintage - it is probably not a good idea to use it with modern 009 locos. I would hope that the new controller has some form of overload protection to protect the locomotive, but I suspect the old H&M controller has just a thermal cutout in the windings of the transformer designed to stop the transformer melting its insulation and producing a mains short or catching fire. With an old OO gauge loco there was hopefully some chance of smelling that a loco was getting hot and cutting the power before it was too late but that is less likely with a modern motor with very fine wire, whether it is coreless or not.

Edit: if there is thermal cutout, does it still work, and do you want to risk checking that it does?

[Hobby]

Also you have much finer control on the handheld controller than the Duette, look how far the control knob travels... As for DCC this isn't the thread for it, if he'd have wanted DCC he'd have asked about it, however if you are going to consider DCC, Adam, now is the time before you buy any other locos. There are LOTS of threads on the pros and cons on the 'net so no need to clutter up this one, just do a google search of DC vs DCC! ;)

[andy1878]

Hi

We all seem to be advocating buying new. And this is not the place to renew the DCC v DC conflict, However I'm sure we all want to be offering all options So:

Please also check out Radio Control Systems.



Andy

[Adam Burton]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I use dcc on my o gauge layout and did consider using it on my 009 layout but thought I would go analogue on this one. A friend will be doing the wiring for me as he did for my o gauge. Looks like the duettes will be destined for the recycling centre!

[Hobby]

Duettes also have "uncontrolled" outputs which can be useful to power other controllers or light buildings, may be not throw away!

[Stefan Krebs]

Hi All,

New to the forum, this is my first post. I feel it is time to add some engineering to the discussion, and debunk some myth. ;D

The answer to the question in the title is:
Some controllers can damage certain motors, and not all motors work well under any controller, that is correct. However, this has nothing to do with old versus new.
Any controller that exceeds the maximum current a motor can handle will damage the motor. Problem with this statement: what is the maximum current, and what can a motor handle?
The quality of control is dependant on the match between controller and motor, and there is no

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 2 Motors (we

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 3 Motor

[Tom Haythornthwaite]

Thank you, Leprechaun - very interesting and valuable!

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 4

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 5

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 6

[Stefan Krebs]

Part 7