I can’t figure this one out. the rear coupler on the tender of my weaver L1a keeps opening when pulling some cars. If I run it without a consist the coupler doesn’t pop. ok it isn’t electrical. after removing and inspecting the coupler all seems ok. now I run with a consist and the rear coupler electrically unpluged from the board and no seperations.??? what next
Electro-couplers can sometimes be sensitive to voltage spikes. There could be enough of a spike to allow the coupler to be pulled open by the consist but not open by itself. First open the tender and check your ground wires. If your grounds are good then try a 1 uF non-polarized capacitor across the coupler leads. This should solve your problem.
Neil
Hi Neal, this coupler is spring loaded so if a spike caused the coil to retract the pin the coupler would pop open with or without a consist.
Not always the case that the coupler will open all the way without a consist as there is no pulling on the coupler to open it. Some of the old post war couplers won’t open even when the mechanism is triggered(pulled or electrically open on an uncoupling track)unless you pull rather hard on them so this might be similar.
I don’t have any Weaver engines but have some Weaver freight cars and they don’t do well with anything other than Weaver.
Lee F.
Hi lee, this is a brand new tender with a coil coupler. when I hit the button on my cab 1 it flies open. I have reconnected the coupler to the board and run it a while and no dissconnects. maybe when I took the coupler appart I fixed something[oops]
Maybe something came loose in shipping and needed to pushed in a little bit.
Glad to hear you fixed it!
Lee F.
not so fast, I hooked the coupler back up to the board yesterday and no problems. today, another story. have to look deeper. I ran another loco on the same track at the same time and the other loco did not uncouple. the problem must be in the tender’s board. probably have to call weaver.
a new twist, I was running as a consist 3 K-line stream liners which have stream lighting. this is the consist that uncouples from the tender. I switched to 4 boxcars and a caboose, all unlighted. no disconnects. I wonder if the lighting or the roller pickups ot the rubbing copper strips on the axles could be causing some kind of spike opening the tender coupler?