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6 Responses to Is it Safe to Modify a Train Controller?
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To be honest, if you have to ask, then NO! A qualified electrician, or some sort of electronics technician would be able to, but playing with electricity if you are not 500% sure of what you are doing is not a good idea! What exactly do you want to achieve by modifying it?
Not sure about the Electronics bit, as they tend to operate on fairly to extremely low voltages these days, but certainly, playing around with anything over about 100V is dicing with death unless you really, really, really, really, really know what you’re doing.
Why would you want to? I can think of 2 reasons
1. If you are running multiple trains using this controller you may have issues depending on how well your trains use power compared to the power supplied by the AC Adapter (far left in your pic). You could buy an adapter that puts out more power and try that. eg Go from 14 VDC 10VA to 14 VDC 20 VA I would not suggest trying to use an adapter that has a higher voltage output than what your (Train and controller can handle (Hence increasing the power output while keeping the voltage the same. If you do this, monitor the temperature of your controller to insure you are not overloading it too much.
2. You are trying to compensate for poor performance on certain sections of your layout. Keep your track and your voltage pick-up wheels on your loco’s CLEAN.. If cleanliness is not the issue, Check each track connector to insure a tight fit and no oxide buildups are present. I suggest you should add additional leads from your controller to various locations of track on your layout. (Keep the polarity to each rail the same at every connection. The wires carry voltage much better than long lengths of track with multiple connectors both of which contribute to voltage drops in the “far reaches” of your layout. Connectors are notorious for contributing to voltage issues and the extra wire connections will minimize those issues greatly. It is a somewhat common practice to solder each rail joint and not solely rely on track connectors to carry the voltage from one section to another.. That may not be practical in your situation. SAFETY FIRST!!!
Hope this helps
Neither part of this can be modified. The transformer is a sealed unit and if you overload it it will “burn out” i.e. fail. The controller part is only designed to handle the same amount of power.
The answer is to have the tracks isolated in 2 or more sections and then feed each section with a separate controller. That way you can control each loco and there is enough power. Or change to DCC.
I have 6 controllers on a large O gauge layout – I can run 4 or 5 trains at once. Or even more if I have a friend to help! P.S. I am a retired Chartered Electrical Engineer.
This question caught my attention. I was not familiar with the R965 controller, so I did some searching. It appears to be the average Transistor throttle with a variable DC output voltage, with the input supplied from a wall transformer. I did find an instructional video of just how to beef up this unit’s output, using a more powerful drive transistor with an added heat-sink to handle the extra heat. Apparently this can be done, but in my opinion, it’s a lot of work unless you are experienced in electronics work. However, here is the video, and it does a good job explaining this project. youtube.com/watch?v=qMvd7dxmjfs
Edward, Why would you want to? There are plenty of DC transformers (AKA Controllers) out there at Train shows that have better power and amps capacity. The one in the picture most likely would never be able to handle more than it can now. Go get an MRC or equivalent transformer used and you should be good. If you are trying to go out on some length of track you probably should run buss wires and connect up to the track every so often The one you show would never be able to handle any length of track without loosing some power. Go get that better transformer. Many guys are converting to DCC and transformers are no longer needed for then. So go to the smaller train shows and I am sure you will find one at a decent price. The smaller shows have a lot of used stuff and just as good as new. Most DC show layouts will hook it up to their layout to make sure it works for you. from Newman