Pretty new to the hobby and the board, (third post now) but I have just purchased a Polar Express set for Xmas and I had a question on the action of the train when it has the reversing switch activated.
When I have the switch set to off I have what I would consider normal operations, In other words yes some times its in neutral but when its not, every time I bring up the power I get a normal gradual movement of the train and am able to build up the speed like it normally would be in a real train.
But when ever I set the switch to activate the reversing mode though, I’m fine with the reversing side of things as it operates as mentioned above, but I seem to have a sporadic issue with the forward mode.
Sometimes it works correctly but sometimes I’ll keep apply power and nothing happens and then all of a sudden it kicks in and the train takes off like a shot. Giving the way this happens its kinda hard to say which mode its in when this happens, is it in forward and the issue is in that mode, or is it in neutral and its kicking into forward, I don’t know (sure would be nice if there was light or something else telling me which mode its in)
At any rate, I went by a service center the other day and asked the repair guy about this and he told me that when it switches its modes there is some degree of a time delay that you should wait for before applying the power and that sometimes people think there is a problem when there really isn’t because just that their being impatient and not letting it time through but to be honest, I’m not really sure that’s it.
The Hogwarts express works the same way. When you first apply power to the engine there is a short delay before it starts to move. this appears to be normal with this reverse unit. So just remember not to juice it to high when starting and you will get use to the way it works. I assume you know-forward-neutral-reverse.
Yes I am aware of the Forward Neutral Reverse switching system but still I have played with it quite a bit and even when I give it quite a bit of time it still happens.
Sometimes I will be applying power and I can here it humming up as I apply it so I will leave it at say 20% and wait like 30 Seconds, then apply more power and all of a sudden she kicks in.
As I mentioned too, I never have the same action happen for the reverse operation and I never have it happened if I have the reversing system switch off.
So if it were me, since in that mode it still has the switching action happening but just for neutral and forward, if I were not allowing the timer to run out correctly, wouldn’t I have it happen for that mode too.?
Mine does a similar thing. There is a delay between the time you apply power and the time the motor kicks in. Lights will come on, but there is a delay until the engine starts moving.
What I do is to slowly add just a little power, wait a second and slowly add a little more, that helps prevent the lurch you get if you apply too much power at once.
Also to add another interesting point, I added the trainsounds tender car and that has a point, (not sure of the exact voltage) that it kinda a a light pop when it get enough power that indicates that its on.
So again, I will get this pop and then have this happen.
From a layman’s point of view, the point I’m making is that I would think that is a good judgment that I have reduced the power enough to warrant a switching of modes which at least tells me that I have switched, (I guess)
Well at least it sounds like I’m not the only one.
Mostly what I do now is run it in the forward mode only, but it kind sucks that I can’t back it up when I need it.
Anyway, I think when I get a chance I will bring it to the repair guy and see what he says, but thanks for all the help guys.