06-12-2010, 11:31 PM
More commentary:
I often hear the Kadee system getting a bad rap. And it can be tough to make it work. I think Kadee was confronted with the issue of steel weights in cars, so they had to make the magnet weak enough not to attract cars, but strong enough to operate the couplers. This is a rock and a hard place, and requires meticulous adjustment of the couplers/draft boxes/springs. Another issue they had to face was unwanted uncouplings as a train went over a permanent magnet. Free rolling cars would sometimes have slack at the couplers and they would uncouple. or if the engine hit a spot with poor electrical contact, it would slow and create slack, or even a poor running engine would do this. Also, the steel weights would pull a car forward in a moving train, again causing slack and unwanted uncoupling.
So, the problem boils down to three things:
Steel
Free rolling cars
weak magnets
The solution:
Get rid of the steel
Heavier cars to make them have more drag (other options exist to create a bit of drag at each car)
stronger magnets.
On my old layout, the uncoupling was pretty durned close to 100 percent.
I often hear the Kadee system getting a bad rap. And it can be tough to make it work. I think Kadee was confronted with the issue of steel weights in cars, so they had to make the magnet weak enough not to attract cars, but strong enough to operate the couplers. This is a rock and a hard place, and requires meticulous adjustment of the couplers/draft boxes/springs. Another issue they had to face was unwanted uncouplings as a train went over a permanent magnet. Free rolling cars would sometimes have slack at the couplers and they would uncouple. or if the engine hit a spot with poor electrical contact, it would slow and create slack, or even a poor running engine would do this. Also, the steel weights would pull a car forward in a moving train, again causing slack and unwanted uncoupling.
So, the problem boils down to three things:
Steel
Free rolling cars
weak magnets
The solution:
Get rid of the steel
Heavier cars to make them have more drag (other options exist to create a bit of drag at each car)
stronger magnets.
On my old layout, the uncoupling was pretty durned close to 100 percent.
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