Don C'mon, SHS cars roll so well that 24 of them hardly stresses a decoder (That's meant to be a compliment! <G>)!! We've maxed out a 2-8-0 in the mid-30 car range with a mixture of freight car pedigrees: brass, SHS, AM, old kits, etc. The wheels slipped (that's good!) but the decoder was fine. Generally on the DPV, two hour's straight running would be a long time. We generally stop to switch or change locomotives and trains more often. Decoders do get warm and on the odd occasion they can overheat; then you'll see some stuttering, but they don't cook.
Most of the newer motors have such low current draws, a 1 amp rated decoder serves the propose. The Maxon's are rated at a max current of less than 0.75 amps, even the Pittman in the 2-6-6-6 maxes out at less than 0.90 amps. I'm not familiar with SHS or AM motor curves, but my guess is they are not a lot different. As noted in a previous post, the exception was the motor originally supplied in the Southwind Niagara 4-8-4. Its max draw was way over 4 amps. We ran one with several assorted brass, AM and JC passenger cars. It ran for maybe 10 minutes, the headlight went out; it moved another 8 feet, stuttered and stopped - dead. I don't remember how much smoke but it sure had that tell-tale burnt wire aroma... When dismantled, the decoder had a dime size spot on it burnt completely black one and done! Jim Kindraka Plymouth, WI --- In [email protected], Don Thompson <don@...> wrote: > > What happens when a Tsunami is at it's limit? I think I know as we have run > a ton of stuff on the display layout for 6 to 8 hours, up and down a 2% grade > with up to 24 cars. With our steam engines, some of them would work just > fine for the first day or so, but later they would just stop and their lights > would flash. I knew what that meant, the decoder was too hot. We would open > the water hatch the next time we ran that decoder. But, once they got hot, > we knew it would happen again at sometime. We saw this the same with the F7A > units when they had all the lights on (Mars light version only) running on > the display layout for longer than 5 or 6 hours. No water hatch to open > here. This is one of the reasons for these two engines we switched to the > QSI rev. U's and now the Titan's. The 1.6 amps did make a difference. We > never had one overheat. We never had a switcher overheat too. The draw half > the amount as the 2-8-0 or F unit motors... > Don > > ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
