Engine setting to override brief power interruptions

The only thing I know is the battery  keeps the engine moving for a very brief period .

Bob,

I seem to remember a friend of mine coming over and accessing a function of DCS which allowed the engine to bridge over these momentary interruptions, and he upgrading all of my engines at that time, and have interruption free operations for many years.  Now that I have wiped out all added functions with the factory resets, I have no idea what was done to address this.  I have called MTH tech support and they know of nothing like this kind of capability.

The reason that has no idea what was done, is that whatever you think was done via engine settings simply isn't possible. There are no DCS "functions" that can mitigate this kind of behavior.  It's a matter of the engine losing continuity with either the center or outside rails, or both.

The only things that can make any kind of a difference in this regard are:

• Make sure that each PS2 engine's battery is full charged to keep the PS2 board hot during momentary power dropouts. This lets the engine's natural momentum keep it going over a dead spot.
• Go faster over bad spots to get past them quicker.
• Clean wheels, rails and pickup rollers.
• Look for and eliminate dead rails.
• Swap single pickup rollers for dual pickup rollers wherever possible.
• Add pickup rollers to tenders that lack them.

I suspect that your issue is electrical in nature and has nothing to do with DCS.

Gregg,

Just to be clear...

The battery (or Supercapacitor) just keeps the PS2 (or PS3) board hot so that the engine has a second or two for its momentum to carry it over a dead spot. The battery does not power the motor at all.

Thanks Greg and BArry.  For what it's worth, my engines are run on capacitors, but it does not sound like that has any impact in this situation.  Was there some kind of quick function which may have been involved??

BArry,

Thanks for your second response.  Unfortunately I think you are right.  It just mystifies me why after the factory resets, this behavior surfaces that I did not experience before.  It looks like I have electrical/mechanical work to do.  Ron

How about calling your friend and asking him to do it again, or at least explain what he did?

RoyBoy,

Unfortunately went underground with the secrets.

Thanks,  ron

I set my decleration to 1 or 2 that works good for me

Clem

Clem,

definitely worth a try. So simple, it might just work. Thanks so much Clem. I will try it. Ron

It seems to me that your dead spots must be pretty lengthy to span both sets of roller pickups in order to stall an engine. Have you tried rolling a lighted car through the problem areas?

If your going slow it doesn't take much to stall

Additions of (4) roller pick-ups to a lot of newer issue 3 rail engines was a big plus,  Atlas also has added small capacitors to smooth-out, bridge over, some of the intermittent operation of AC roller pick-up power.  Cleaning/lubricating pick-up rollers a big plus.   Wheels and flanges can also acquire a lot of dirt that tends to inhibit electrical flow.  Basic maintenance.  IMO, Mike CT

John H posted:

It seems to me that your dead spots must be pretty lengthy to span both sets of roller pickups in order to stall an engine. Have you tried rolling a lighted car through the problem areas?

When you go over switches, some two roller locomotives will manage to find the dead spots and stall, especially at low speeds.

I did solve the same problem with a PS2 by taking two rollers off a four roller dummy and putting those on the powered engine.I missed the part about only on switches. Thanks for pointing that out, John.

This long Weaver E8 was able to find two holes, ( both pick-ups on a hole), two switches installed relatively close to each other.

Yep, pretty hard to design a layout that will accommodate all engines with only two rollers, someone is always going to be spaced incorrectly.

Just spent a couple of hours testing your various suggestions.   Here's what I found:

1.  Running a lighted caboose over the switches yielded no power drop/interruption.

2.  Tried the 1-2 decrease in deceleration speed]\d, but could not find improvement.  May help once the basic problem is resolved

3.  Ran the Dash 8 over the switches.  in reverse, not problem.  In forward, big problem.  engine bucked, or just hesitated, and symptoms in between.  Turned the engine around, and the same thing happened going the other direction.   Cleaned the switches and surrounding track with green pad.  No effect.  Tried WD 40 on the rollers of the engine, to address any corrosion on roller axles,  but no improvement.  

4.  Ran SD-90 and U50C over the same switches in the both directions both ways.  NO Problem.

So my conclusion is as Barry suggested, an electro/mechanical associated with the engine.  NOt sure why it would primarily happen when the engine was going forward, but it does.  And it's occurrence must just be happenstance vs the factory reset of the engines.

Thanks all for your thoughtful, creative suggestions.  Believe this has nothing to do with DCS, but is electrical/mechanical.  If you have any ideas on why this would only happen when the engine is going forward, not backward, I would appreciate them.  I will do more investigation on the rollers and the wheels, but they do not appear to be a problem, although they're the most likely culprits.

Thanks all,   Ron

Both PS2 and PS3 stalling ?

Are you reversing the engines, reversing the direction of loco travel over the switches, or both?