Aristocraft loco - use of Pulse width control

[davecar]

Hi,

I am new to g scale and thinking of buying another loco. I have identified an Aristo craft loco called a Rea 0-4-0 and it is for sale on Ebay at £87.50 plus p & p. See link below:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370310308885&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I have tracked down the instruction manual for this at

http://www.aristocraft.com/techinfo/manuals pdf/21300_0-4-0.pdf

In the instruction manual it says only power this loco with an aristo craft power unit because it uses "pulse width control". If another power control is used you need an adapter.

I only have a very basic 1 amp controller but I am thinking of upgrading.

Thought this loco would be suitable but the above infor has put me off. The loco does have a smoke generator and a fire glow box.

Any information gratefully received.


Kind regards,

Dave

 

[Gizzy]

Hi,

I am new to g scale and thinking of buying another loco. I have identified an Aristo craft loco called a Rea 0-4-0 and it is for sale on Ebay at £87.50 plus p & p. See link below:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370310308885&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I have tracked down the instruction manual for this at

http://www.aristocraft.com/techinfo/manuals pdf/21300_0-4-0.pdf

In the instruction manual it says only power this loco with an aristo craft power unit because it uses "pulse width control". If another power control is used you need an adapter.

I only have a very basic 1 amp controller but I am thinking of upgrading.

Thought this loco would be suitable but the above infor has put me off. The loco does have a smoke generator and a fire glow box.

Any information gratefully received.


Kind regards,

Dave

What you could do Dave, is to purchase an Aristocraft Basic Train Engineer (the orange one) which is PWC, or better still, get the black version which can run either linear or PWC.

The orange ones (some were in train sets) can be picked up quite cheaply, and would have enough current to run the loco you hope to buy. The black ones are more expensive and need an external transformer, but you could use your basic 1A one for now (as I did) until you can afford to upgrade. It seems from another thread that the black ones are no longer available (at Dragon G Scale), so you may find one second hand.

An appeal to other Centralists; does anyone have either type of TE for sale?

Would be a help to Dave....

 

[ntpntpntp]

Hi Dave,

the Aristo 0-4-0 (or the older REA model) will run just fine on your standard 1-amp DC controller. I've run mine quite happily off a simple Playmobil or LGB train set controller. PWC will help maintain the brightness of the loco's lights and volume of smoke at low speed but it's not a necessity if you can live without.

If you run the loco with the optional slopeback tender with sound, that's when it really does benefit from Aristo's PWC which helps to keep the sound running properly at slower speed.

Oh, and people with LGB locos fitted with fancy electronics tend to avoid the orange basic Train Engineer controllers for fear that the PWC may damage the electronics. As Gizzy said, the more expensive black Train Engineer units can be switched to a smoother "linear" mode instead of PWC.

 

[beavercreek]

Hi Dave,

the Aristo 0-4-0 (or the older REA model) should run just fine on your standard 1-amp DC controller. Mine does (or did until I chipped it for DCC). PWC will help maintain the brightness of the loco's lights and volume of smoke at low speed but it's not a necessity if you can live without.

If you run the loco with the optional slopeback tender with sound, that's when it really does benefit from Aristo's PWC which helps to keep the sound running properly at slower speed.

Oh, and people with LGB locos fitted with fancy electronics tend to avoid the orange basic Train Engineer controllers for fear that the PWC may damage the electronics. The more expensive black Train Engineer units can be switched to a smoother "linear" mode instead of PWC.

I totally agree with what Nick has said. PWC is really a high frequency spike that enables Aristo, and other makes', lights (and smoke and sound but the motors do not use it) to 'see' a higher voltage than what is being applied and so they glow bright or smoke well, like they would at about full voltage. This can also work with some sound cards at low voltages but it can also eventually wreck certain sound systems and certainly can really mess up DCC decoders as they see the 'high frequency square wave spike' as a DCC instruction which interferes with the normal signals that they expect.

Your loco will be fine with any analogue (and even most DCC) power pack.

 

[chris m01]

I'm no electronics engineer but I suspect the note about pwc in the manual is a load of rubbish written to try to sell more Aristo controllers.
Fundamentally pretty much any electric motor used in a model loco will happily accept traditional variable dc current. The bulbs and other accessories will be receiving less voltage on linear control than they will on pwc so will not be damaged - although the lights may not be so bright and the smoke may not smoke so much.

It should be noted that , as Aristo started to support battery operation (which is not pwc) , the manuals for new loco designs included a note about the battery switch and completely dropped the nonsense about needing pwc. The U25b manual has a similar comment about pwc but I run mine on linear with no problem. I can't see that running these early Aristos on linear control will do any harm but running modern locos with electronics on board using pwc is likely to do harm.

I'm told the current from the pwc units has some nasty spikes which is bad for electronics. LGB locos are known for having problems and I think running on pwc caused the flashing ditch lights on my SD70 to blow although I can't be certain. Fact is they were working fine and then stopped working when I accidentally left the power on pwc. I replaced the board and have not had a problem since. Neddless to say I keep my TE switched to linear these days.

 

[Shawn]

The only reason you should use PWC is if using an aristo engine with their factory installed sound system. The aristo factory sound will not work unless you have the PWC or run the loco at a very high speed. It also makes the lights and smoke unit work better when run at low speed. I use all brands with PWC and have not had any problems but I dont have any sound systems. Do yoou really need PWC? No unless you want to use the aristo sound units.