I needed to run a consist to have enough power to pull around my track cleaning car. I am running a prodigy advance system.
No problem setting a GP38 and an F series to consist. I had both setting on the track and seperated to make sure they were both set up to run. Here comes the question.
When I put up the trottle the GP 38 we running at twice the speed of the F.
Is this not going to hurt one of the motors if I put them in consist?
I took them out of consist an speed matched them and ran the car cleaner.
Short answer. No. The faster one will drag the slower or the faster one will be spinning its wheels. Best to try to speed match as close as possible before consisting.
If the F unit has a Digitrax decoder, that may be your problem. When consisted, Digitrax decoders go into a half speed mode. There is a CV to change it, but I don’t remember what it is. That is why I don’t like and don’t use Digitrax decoders.
None of my Digitrax decoders go to half-speed when I consist them(with other decoders). I think you are thinking about the ‘switcher/road’ option in many Digitrax decoders This is the ‘switching speed’ function and is controlled by CV54. The F6 button will toggle this function.
By default, a Digitrax decoder with BEMF will turn off the BEMF - in an ADVANCED consist only - and since DIgitrax systems don;t use advanced consisting by default, many never see it. But if using another brand system, you may notice a difference.
Lack of BEMF shouldn’t slow anything down, quite the reverse - if the loco was a good runner to begin with, strting speed should barely change, but a marginal loco will see the minimum start speed go up, because it no longer has BEMF to help it along. Others have reported that top speeds seem to greatly increase when BEMF is off, as if the BEMF is ‘reserving’ some part of the power so the motor never sees full power with BEMF on. I’ve never seen that, either. But Digitrax BEMF implementation is pretty poor anyway.
What kills Bachmann locos are the stupid capacitors and choke coils in the circuit, so if you just plug in a decoder, this could be the problem. It causes problems both with the normal high frequency motor drive from just about any decoder, as well as with any sort of BEMF, since the capcitors and chokes distort the waveform. Depending on the loco, it is usually quite easy to cut out the offending capacitors, they are in parallel with the motor and can just be cut off, no jumpers or anythign needed.
Pete,answered your question and said no,I will answer your question and say no also,you will not hurt the motors…And if you do want to try to speed match them,close enough,is good enough…
If they were speed matched, then one wouldn;t be running twice as fast as the other. They don;t have to be perfect - adding a load to drag is a great equalizer, but one twice as fast as the other, there will be much sliding of wheels. If the faster one has enough tractive effort, it will pull the slower one, sliding the wheels. If the faster one isn;t strong enough, it will be spinning its wheels a lot.