Using neodymium magnets between the sleepers

we can get builders strength pva from B&Q,which is the stuff I use,3 sizes to pick from.
:doublethumb:cool:

Perry, I hope you don't mind if I post my efforts after being guided by your posts!

Before painting - bit crappy looking as these had been glued before:-




After a coat of brown paint - they certainly don't look as obvious as the normal Kadee magnets.




Once ballasted, should look OK

The advantage of these PUMS  , over the underneath the track magnets of Kadee #308  which may need an area possibly cut into the baseboard depending on how track is laid,  can be installed after track is down.

I don't mind in the slightest, Sol. :doublethumb

Thanks for posting the pictures. They demonstrate that the visual effect I was looking for is achieveable.

I'm really pleased with the amount of interest that has been shown in this thread, and the way a simple idea has been progressed by other people 'having a go'.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the world's supply of 3mm neodymium magnets has recently become rather depleted….. 

Perry

I have just set up some more PUMS in a group of 3 in a 36" radius & it seems perfect - in fact I think you could go lower to 24" using 4 wheel stock  or bogie mounted couplers & adding more PUMS to make 4 or 5 strips  giving a good magnetic field to work with.

Perhaps we should flog the idea to Kadee!

Perry

[user=17]Perry[/user] wrote:

Perhaps we should flog the idea to Kadee!

Perry

Then the price of rare earth magnets will go up as Kadee will have cornered the market exclam:exclam:

OK so today 50 of these little 3 x 3 magnets arrived. I had already equipped a loco and a truck with Kadees, so I laid two rows of five magnets as per the thread onto double sided tape in a test track area. My they are strong little blighters. Never good at physics at school I do remember that opposite poles attract and like poles repel so I have assumed that each of the five when stuck together are the right way round.  Is there however some way of determining that I have them in the right sequence and are laid the right way round?

At the moment the kadees sometimes uncouple, sometimes dont and always wobble about.

Les

 

Les I found that & I had one set of magnets the wrong way around, for example against one rail I had North, South, North and the glad arms on the couplers got confused.
Yes get 15 all joined together then split into 5's & when placing the magnets make sure like poles are all to the same rail.

That's the way I did it too. :thumbs

Perry

been following this thread so farso good ,just one question, why 15 magnets?
Iwould of thought 5 down each line would suffice

lol::cool:

I tested a single row of five, two rows of five and finally three rows of five.

The three rows of five gave a longer uncoupling area (about 18mm) which a: made it easier to position the stock over it, and b: gave a more positive action than using fewer magnets.

They are so cheap that it made sense to me to err on the generous side when it came to installing the magnets. One probably could get away with two rows, but experience has shown that three rows are better. Bear in mind that these magnets are only 3mm wide. I don't think that's wide enough to affect both droppers on a pair of wagons at once.

Perry

Thank you gentlemen that seems to have sorted it - all working well.:thumbs

Les

Don't know how but I seemed to have missed putting this project in the Forum Index. Just in case anybody goes looking later on it's in there now. Old age I suppose.

Thanks, Bob! :thumbs

:cheers

Perry

[user=18]Les[/user] wrote:

Thank you gentlemen that seems to have sorted it - all working well.:thumbs

Les

Good on yer, Les! :thumbs

Perry

Perry, can I ask why you need a row of 5 across the track ?

I can understand why you need multiple rows along the track, but do the magents increase in strength if there are more of them ?

Would the magnets work as well if you only used the outer ones of each row ?

Stu

 

[user=465]Stubby47[/user] wrote:

Perry, can I ask why you need a row of 5 across the track ?

I can understand why you need multiple rows along the track, but do the magents increase in strength if there are more of them ?

Would the magnets work as well if you only used the outer ones of each row ?

Stu

 

I tried multiple configurations and found this to be the most effective.

Sol also tried other ways of doing it, but I believe he also settled on the three rows of five.

I think leaving a gap shows the 'wrong pole' of the magnet to the coupling dropper and it gets confused! :shock:

Perhaps this diagram will illustrate what I mean:



With the 5 magnets in a row, the droppers are attracted to the extreme ends, giving full deflection.

With the two magnets (or even two pairs with a gap in the middle) you can see that the droppers would not be deflected sufficiently to cause positive uncoupling actions. They would be attracted to the 'inner' north and south poles, rather than the ones at the outsides.

I don't know if I've got the science right, but after lots of testing, the rows of five seemed to work best for me.

Perry

Since the magnets have been painted and the ballasting done, it's proved quite difficult to actually see where they are when operating the layout. :???:

I've stood some temporary markers beside the track to make them easier to find. These will be replaced in the fullness of time with a figure, piece of junk, or something similar that I can easily spot but that won't be obvious to other observers.

Perry

Good idea, Perry.  I've used dead trees.

Perry now I understand the 5 rows, I forgot about the poles being on the ends, not along the sides as in kadee one`s
:roll::cool: