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Post by mgatdog on May 10, 2020 11:53:51 GMT -5
Ok Mark since you are good at being the tech guy . My question is how many cars should one put behind a single loco to be pulled without hurting the motor. I know what’s next . It depends on what loco and brand . If there is any grade in the layout and how quick the 1 To 2% grade is. Plus what kind of freight car is being pulled etc 40’,50’ boxcar , well cars, 33’ coal hopper and so on. So break it down.
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Post by mgatdog on May 10, 2020 11:58:21 GMT -5
Please all z rr please jump in.
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Post by ztrack on May 10, 2020 12:19:48 GMT -5
Okay here is the deal.. pull as many as you want! The motors won't stop turning, but what you will get is wheel slip of the train weight is too much. Yes, car weights, grades, curves, etc will factor in loco pulling power. Traction tires tend to be the great equalizer. I have never burned out a motor by pulling to heavy of a trains.
For the record. I do recommend double heading locos. While you do get great pulling power but doing so, double heading also has the benefit of evening out the locos. So if one hesitates, the other keeps the train moving. You get better and more consistent operations that way.
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Post by Rob Albritton on May 10, 2020 12:56:06 GMT -5
I have to Agree with Rob Kluz here - there is no train drag limit on AZL locomotives. Even with our rubber traction tires, the wheels will act as a torque limiter and begin to slip before you can do damage to the motor or the drive train. The locomotive just doesn’t weigh enough to over torque the motor.
Now we have seen damage from customers who run too many volts into a locomotive, or even slam the power back and forth for months on end (someone automated an RDC in an office once with some simple contact switches. Every 5 seconds it flipped a full 12 volts from positive to negative and slammed this poor thing up and down a little single track line. It still took over a year of that to kill the RDC)
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Post by markm on May 10, 2020 13:02:11 GMT -5
Well that's a lot! Probably need to write an app to cover all the possibilities. Well let's get started. This should be worth a few posts. It seems looking at locomotive reviews everyone likes using draw bar pull as a measure of power. I've got a unit and have started taking measurements, but I'm not quite ready to talk about them until I know my measurements are actually meaningful. I would think this is a number that manufacturers would measure, so if AZL will speak up on say a GP, F3, P42, or so; I'll show you mine if you show us yours. I'm not sure how meaningful this number really is as it doesn't take into account many physical characteristics of a layout. As a conversation starter, I submit this data:  The throttle is an original Snail. Each load is 29-30 grams. Voltage is an integrated value of the pulse string. It shows pretty much what one would expect: the more weight, the more power to get started and the lower the maximum speed. More details will have to wait until I get home. But there is a forecast for Monday-Tuesday to be snow days, so I should have some time... Mark |
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Post by davestubbs on May 11, 2020 9:12:52 GMT -5
One exception would be the brass Steam engines. Big Boy, Challenger, etc. While the motor will not be hurt, the gears that transfer power from the motor worm gear to the axle gear are spinning in the brass frame with no bushing so heavy loads will oval out the hole. I was running my challenger with 50 PFE cars at a show for a couple of hours and that night when I went to clean and lube it that what I found.
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Post by BAZman on May 17, 2020 18:08:42 GMT -5
We run 100+ car trains at the shows, usually with the F3's ABB but sometimes a mash of SD70, etc. All flat level (as can be at a show) but there is an End module with 1% grade (15" radius) and lots of broad curves on the main lines. After dozens of shows, I am amazed that the traction tires haven't failed, especially if slipping on track gaps and turnout points and frogs. The ABA is at the lower part of the pix. The 112th car is at the top of the pix (under that black rectangle)  |
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Post by wearyhobo on May 17, 2020 22:43:15 GMT -5
In my view, with z locos as well as the real thing, there is both science & art. Most AZL locos. An pull a tremendous load without suffering damage. But just like actual railroads, teamed up units (2 or 3) can more easily pull long consists at lower power & appropriate speeds. A ubiquitous problem with model railroads is that trains tend to run too fast & run at the upper end of power supply. I’m no engineer, but in my experience (just like an outboard motor on a boat) you want to throttle back from peak & ideally run at no more than about 3/4 power. And just like a real engineer, if you listen, you can hear your engine working. and it will tell you how comfortable it is. As for me, I can run 2 AZL GP9s, pulling 20-24 car freights over the grades, trestles, tunnels & curves of my SP southern Oregon layout as smooth as silk without strain. One GP will pull the load too, but I can hear the strain.
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Post by tjdreams on May 18, 2020 16:13:55 GMT -5
A little over 5 years ago I had one AZL GP9 pulling 87 cars at a show. About 12 hours run time over 2 days. It could have pulled more but that was all the hoppers i had at the time.
Fast forward 2-1/2 years, about 5 or 6 shows later that same loco now had close to 60 hours run time on it and was doing just fine pulling 126 hoppers all by itself. The next day thanks to a package from Anthony at Zscalemonster Trains I was able to add a 2nd GP9 and 4 more hoppers bringing my collection up to 130 hoppers
Today those 2 locos have around 85-90 hours and 25-30 hours runtime all pulling 100+ car trains for hours on end at shows. To date both locos have only been taken down cleaned & Lubricated one time each and that was only done as part of the routine maintenance checkup that I do whenever I add a decoder to a Loco. Both Locos are running just as good today if not better than they did the day i bought them.
David
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Post by husafreak on May 18, 2020 23:18:06 GMT -5
This is why Z scale is the king. It is the utmost in realism. Love those looong trains!
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