Welp, I stated in a prior post that if I continue to get false uncoupling (mostly cars with metal axles) and have to run engine and cars back and forth umpteen times just to get a car uncoupled I was going to remove the magnet. Even after lifting a car via a washer added in truck pin to lift a low coupler made no difference. And so I did ...This magnet was going to solve a reach problem on one spur as skewer stick is a bit difficult in here...But I'd rather go back to that than put up with what I had been hassling over the magnet with the last 4 days; hand-sliding engine or cars to repeatedly to watch action from right above area; having it look fine at site only to have it foul up again using throttle(0 momentum). Kadee (Ken and Dave) have been a boon to our hobby in a great number of ways beginning with their knuckle couplers, finally ridding hobby of those horn-hooks. I don't scourn them for my magnet problems. I'm very sure many many MRRs have had great results with it..Perhaps they are willing to change all their metal axles and perfect the height of all their couplers and/or they absolutely can not reach cars with the stick method. But for me, after a very taxing installment job and still miserable results, I felt liberated after removing it yesterday...There is a switch at termination of this spur which badly needed its frog powered (stallouts on a No.4). I finally did that with perfect results. Unless there were a substance to paint onto axles to prevent unwanted magnetic activity this is where I'm leavin' it...Over and out...
No way for you to swap permanent magnets with electromagnets? I've done that on strategic spots, and I'm happy with the result. Dom
Thanks for responces..So it's Keith and Dale !! Must have slowly melted around in my brain over all the years and became Ken and Dave...Yeah, I'll check out the electro......
Another possibility is to use one of the big under-track magnets, but mount it on a hinge so that it can be dropped away from the tracks when you don't need to uncouple cars. I have a friend who uses this method and it works pretty well, although he uses cables and gravity to move the magnet, whereas I would prefer push rods or a lever and a bell crank. Bill in FtL
Remove the magnets, cut the dongles off, get a Rix Pix or a skewer or a martini toothpick, and voila!...no more uncoupling problems, or dongles snagging on turnout frogs. No electromagnets, no levers, no cables, no bell-cranks or push-rods (??)...simple... Cheers!! Bob Gilmore
That's how I mount my MT under-track magnets on my mainline, just in case I later experience unintended uncoupling (no problems yet, though). The magnet hole goes all the way through the plywood sub-roadbed. At the bottom of the hole is a hinged piece of wood (kind of like a trap door), on which the magnet is glued. The "door" is held closed with a small piece of wood rotating on a screw. I just reach under the edge of the layout, rotate the piece of wood, and the magnet drops down away from the track. This dispenses with cables, etc. MH
All my Half Zero stuff is getting Mantuas installed. No unwanted uncouplings. My Naught scale stuff is getting Monarchs or Scale Models...some still have Roundhouse....all normal operating knuckles (no sliding jaw), no magnets, even can install cut levers that work. In Large Scale, we buy a batch of used stuff, any Kadees come off immediately, normal operating knuckles go back on. Used to was, outdoors, Kadees were a real joke. The shaft rusted in the coupler body. Not pretty. Dave
