This evening, several of the BAZ BoyZ met over at my place, and we hooked up a scope to the Gaugemaster to see what it was. Without a locomotive, we seen 350 volt pulses of 2 microsecond duration. When we put a loco on the track and ran it, the voltage dropped to about 4 volts at the speed we were running, but every so often we seen spikes of 800 volts on the scope! This thing is doing something! So, we ran a couple balky locos around, and one of them was still a little balky, so I opened it up and cleaned the brushes. While I was doing this, I layed my arm across the rails and felt a good burn instead of shock. I'd hate to stick my tongue on the rails! (don't you hate it when that happens?) After fixing a broken piece of plastic, and cleaning the brushes, I put the balky loco back on the tracks, and ran it again. It ran a lot better, and smoothed out after a couple laps. I am very happy with the Gaugemaster, as it really seems to help the locos run slower and smoother. So happy that I bought another one. Be careful about touching the rails though, and don't put your tongue on the rails. -Robert
Very funny but true. I noticed the same thing while I was putting a loco on the tracks. My fingers made contact and it felt like a little burn. Enough to get you attension anyway! I do enjoy the gaugemaster though, it really is an amazing product. I recomend it to anybody who desires to run their Z at slow working speeds because it really does work.
If the voltage is at 350V even for a short amount of time, this is considered high voltage and is potentially dangerous could be lethal. Granted not as fun as sitting on a chair rigged with a 6000 Volt Television flyback transfo. Does this item have UL seal on it? To lower the voltage to an acceptable level, I suggest a load resistor accross the output of the device. Be certain that the voltage never exceeds 50 volts even for microseconds. This high voltage is probably due to an inductor collapsing so a weak 1k resistor would probably help. This is a safety concern.
Nope, this thing has no UL approval, but it does have a CE mark. It comes from Europe. If you put a resistor across the output, it will never work, because it always sees a load. I probably should have a pacemaker warning label on my modules. -Robert
It's not voltage that harms, it is current. As Robert says the voltage collapses as soon as any current is drawn. In simple terms when the loco loses contact (on a dirty track) then an open circuit occurs. The high voltage then generated by the Gaugemaster unit breaks down the dirt and restores the circuit. This type of device was originally made (and probably invented by) Relco. I had a couple of them many (too many ) years ago. Gaugemaster came into them later. Actually, it's a bit confusing when you guys talk about 'The Gaugemaster' because in the UK they are best known for their range of controllers - the track cleaners are really just an extension of that.
