In the last issue of " Trains " there was an article about fixing a noisy E Unit. I could not tell if the radio shack replaced or fixed the E unit. Does the current E unit come out or does this radio shack part simply quiet down the E Unit? thanks much, Jake
I think you mean CTT, not Trains, Jake.
What was suggested was a bridge rectifier added to the e-unit. This fix has been described many times here on the forum.
The E unit stays in the engine. The bridge rectifier simply changes the AC voltage to DC to quiet down the coil chatter.
Earl
Some information I gleaned from ‘another 0 gauge’ magazine forum.
You should be aware that the bridge rectifier mod can cause other issues.
Pushing DC through the coil in one direction can permanently magnetize the plunger, and gravity may not be able to pull it back down.
The coil can run hotter with DC due to resistance changes, and you take a chance of burning the lacquer off of the coil.
I think I like the buzz just the way it is.
Bob
Has anyone tried this yet? Would be interesting to see how well it works.
I have rectifiers in my locomotives, upstream of both the motor(s) and e-unit, and have not noticed any magnetization.
The e-unit draws about the same RMS current on DC as on AC. Although the coil inductance does not contribute to the coil impedance in impeding the DC current component, it acts like a low-pass filter to remove much of the ripple, which of course has a lot to do with why the bridge rectifier quiets the e-unit.
Thanks Bob, I think I might try this on a noisy 2338 this winter.