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Reply to "MTH HO Triplex long address programming problems"

Thanks Stuart.  That makes sense from a design POV.  Three of my four MTH HO steam engines have their traction tires on gear driven axles - see photos attached.  The exception being the Triplex.  

That MTH HO Dreyfuss was only here temporarily b/c it lifted its center drive wheels off the rails for some portion of every rotation.  See video attached.  In order for the camera to focus, the video is not close up enough to see the lifting very well, but closer in I could see it happening.  Have you ever seen that before?  What might have been wrong with it?  That lifting not only caused slippage and poor traction, but also instability (i.e. derailments).  I'm assuming, there was just something wrong with that particular example.  

I replaced it with a BLI P4 Dreyfuss which in some ways falls short of the MTH (e.g. no ground lights), but isn't bad and generates over 10 oz of pulling power.  BLI drives the middle axle and has traction tires on the rear drive wheels.  They do, however, something interesting with the suspension of the drivers.  The front and middle axles are mildly suspended and fairly well set in place, but the rear axle, while also spring suspended,  has far more degrees of freedom (pitch, yaw, and roll) which somehow translates into very positive contact with the rails no matter whether going uphill, downhill, on the flats, or over less than perferctly even track.   I'll just have to keep an eye on worn connecting rods which, now that you mention it, might be what's wrong with my P2 RDG T-1 that runs with a noticeable lurchiness at mid-range speeds.    

I too would prefer to run all metal wheels, but our club's permanent layout has several mountain helixes (there are 7 levels) including one of particular challenge to many engines.  It is frankly the acid test for whether an engine can run on the layout alone, all the more with cars in tow, or must be MU'd with other engines.  Therefore, the extra adhesion of traction tires for now comes in very useful.  

Thanks again for your expertise and insights.

Dave

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Videos (1)
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