06-14-2010, 08:05 AM
Nice, Gary. I'm planning a module set of the Southwest Portland Cement plant in Victorville, Ca, and was looking for a system to have automatic uncoupling. The guys in the modular club use various methods of uncoupling cars that generally involve the use of two hands on the cars to be uncoupled. I would like a "hands free". If the electro magnet just causes a car with steel weights to roll a little when the magnet is energized, that would not be much of a problem, much better than using two hands to uncouple cars or using a permanent magnet with the problem of nuisance uncoupling. My system would be operated by anyone in the club participating in an operating session, so I would like it to be fool proof. Do you have any part numbers for the time delays, and do you know of a time delay that would energize for 5 seconds and then do a forced de-energize for 30 seconds before being allowed to activate again? One other question, would the rolling caused by steel weights in car pull the couplers away form the magnets so that they would not uncouple? It suddenly dawns on me that a flat weight like used by Athearn or steel weights mounted in the center of the car could cause the couplers to move past the magnet or cause an uncoupled car to "follow" the train and recouple when it cleared the magnet.