In a post about the Toy Fair Spongebob raises something that I had not thought about - if I have understood him correctly- but which is important. I find it so surprising that I can hardly believe it!
"The controllers do look good but i have to say i aren't a fan of the twiddly knob thing they use for a power regulator, my bachmann one is ok until you go back to a loco having adjusted the power to a different loco then as soon as you touch the dial the damn thing either slows to a crawl or shoots off like a startled hare." Spongebob
Spongebob suggests, I think, that with a Bachmann controller you can get the following problem. You drive say loco 1 and set the rotary controller to the high speed that you want the loco to go & then decide to leave it at that speed & to go & shunt say loco 2 whilst loco 1 is still going. Loco 2 as soon as you touch the rotary control is getting a message that the speed you set loco 1 is what you want it to do & lurches off at high speed in the siding. Having recovered control & changed underwear the last thing you do with loco 2 is stop it before you go back to loco 1. The rotary controller is now at stopped when you go back to loco 1. As soon as you touch the speed control loco 1 which has been running nicely is told that it should be stopped as this is where the rotary control is set & thus it comes to a juddering halt.
I have only tried button control with more than one loco & find all this surprising. I had imagined that rotary speed controllers were not simply volume controls but accepted where they were pointed as the current state when you change loco selected & you either moved up or down from there. This would mean that you could go from loco 1 running flat out to loco 2 moving very slowly & then back to loco 1 without lurches of speed.
Have I understood this correctly & is it a problem with all rotary speed controls?
Chris
"The controllers do look good but i have to say i aren't a fan of the twiddly knob thing they use for a power regulator, my bachmann one is ok until you go back to a loco having adjusted the power to a different loco then as soon as you touch the dial the damn thing either slows to a crawl or shoots off like a startled hare." Spongebob
Spongebob suggests, I think, that with a Bachmann controller you can get the following problem. You drive say loco 1 and set the rotary controller to the high speed that you want the loco to go & then decide to leave it at that speed & to go & shunt say loco 2 whilst loco 1 is still going. Loco 2 as soon as you touch the rotary control is getting a message that the speed you set loco 1 is what you want it to do & lurches off at high speed in the siding. Having recovered control & changed underwear the last thing you do with loco 2 is stop it before you go back to loco 1. The rotary controller is now at stopped when you go back to loco 1. As soon as you touch the speed control loco 1 which has been running nicely is told that it should be stopped as this is where the rotary control is set & thus it comes to a juddering halt.
I have only tried button control with more than one loco & find all this surprising. I had imagined that rotary speed controllers were not simply volume controls but accepted where they were pointed as the current state when you change loco selected & you either moved up or down from there. This would mean that you could go from loco 1 running flat out to loco 2 moving very slowly & then back to loco 1 without lurches of speed.
Have I understood this correctly & is it a problem with all rotary speed controls?
Chris