Track cleaning - part 2

 

I purchased a cleaning wagon from Mabar a couple of years ago and can finally put it to use.

Mabar 81802-B

The instructions are available here.

Digitization

The manual is clear enough and the process straight forward. The roof is held by two rather powerful magnets. The body can be spread to release it from the chassis. A 21-pin decoder is installed; I took a ESU LokPilot V4.0 ref 54615. I might get a cheaper decoder, because no functions are required. Adjusting the speed control on that decoder makes the motor on the cleaning wagon go faster; the same motor is used for the polishing and for the vacuum.

Running

I made a cleaning consist with the "passive" Roco cleaner. It went around the layout without much trouble.

Setting a long address on a Roco engine

Most Roco engines are fitted with a Zimo decoder. Those decoders are not supported by the ESU LokProgrammer software and it is therefore not very intuitive on how to change the address of a Roco engine. Here's how I do it.

I want to set engine BB 22332 - Roco 73878 to address 2232.

CV 17 & 18

 The long address is 4-digit long and stored in CV 17 and CV 18. I used the following calculator to compute the value for each CV: https://www.digitrax.com/support/cv/calculators/

For a long address of 2232, the values are:

• CV 17 = 200
• CV 18 = 184

I used the ESU LokProgrammer to "manually" write those CVs:

This step by itself is not enough. CV 29 also needs to be adjusted.

CV 29

In addition, bit 5 of CV 29 needs to be set to 1, so that the command station knows to use the long address instead of the short address stored in CV 1. CV 29 actually holds multiple settings, including the RailCom protocol. I used the following calculator: http://www.2mm.org.uk/articles/cv29%20calculator.htm

• CV 29 = 46 (previous value was 14)

ESU ECoS

Once the CVs 17, 18, and 29 are written, I can bring the engine to the layout and use the ECoS to add the engine including all the different sounds and functions.

Track cleaning

I'm facing some challenges with running engines on (dirty) tracks. Back a couple of months ago, I cleaned them thoroughly; the proof is here. I thought, at the time, that I would not need another thorough cleaning for another 6 months. Unfortunately, a few weeks after running the HLE 1312, I wanted to run some other engines and nothing moved. I tried doing another cleaning with the Woodland Scenics Rail Tracker Cleaning Kit:

The manual explains that the different pads can be used for two main purposes: major and minor cleaning. I tried both, but the results were very disappointing.

Today, I'm back on the layout and thought I'd go directly with the Roco Track cleaning rubber (ref 10002). 

This time, it's clearly working and the only downside is the need to vaccum afterwards as it leaves residue on the tracks. You can see below where one side has been cleaned and the other one has not.

 

Video of two AM80

A much-appreciated contribution from one of the followers of this blog, thank you!