Steam tender wheel SLED cleaning

[craigolio1]

Thank you Max, this type of misunderstanding the properties of these products is a peeve of mine.  Same with Conduct-a-lube from Atlas - it is not electrically conductive.

Thanks guys for correcting me. I didn't mean to mislead.

Craig

[peteski]

Victor, your explanation left me totally speechless.  While I always suspected that, now I know: you have whole another way of looking at the world.

In my world, unless a grease or a lubricant is actually conductive (let's say less than 5 ohms per square) then its function is only to improve conductivity of 2 metal parts in contact with each-other. The lubricant in question coats the metal parts, preventing them from oxidizing, thus it improves conductivity.  Cotcact between 2 clean metal moving surfaces is better thsan if those surfaces were oxidized.  That benefit (protection from oxidation, not electrical conductivity of the lubricant itself) is usually mentioned in the technical literature about the grease itself).

The bulb grease, the grease which protects aluminum wire joints from corrosion, and conduct-a-lube all mention protection from oxidation. None of the above products mention that the products themselves are electrically conductive.

If the metal parts are in a physical contact with each other then the current will flow through the path of least resistance (the metal-to-metal contact, not grease).  If the positive contact is lost, then if the voltage is high enough to break down whatever material caused the loss of contact, electricity will arc across that non-conductive material. That will happen no matter what the material is: bulb grease or a microscopic piece of crud).  Carbon will probably form at the location of the arc either way.  I don't see how the carbon from one of those greases would be better than carbon from some piece of crud.    This discussion is getting way to weird, even for me.

If you want to go down to the microscopic level and try to describe the electrical breakdown of the lubricant layer (at voltages of 12V or less), have fun!

[victor miranda]

Peteski,

oh yes I am sure that left you astounded.

and I still am pretty sure you didn't hear what I said.

ah well.   'tis still your loss.

 till next time.
victor

[peteski]

Peteski,

oh yes I am sure that left you astounded.

and I still am pretty sure you didn't hear what I said.

ah well.   'tis still your loss.

 till next time.
victor

Sounds like again you are correct Victor. But judging by Max's response I don't think he heard it either.

That makes me wonder if we were to be able to sit face-to-face and you could verbally explain things to me, would I be able to better understand what I miss in a wri9tten message.

[victor miranda]

yep.

I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I tested this stuff?

you have not in the past so I doubt is has changed today

I was writing a post for max....
I may not post it because the discussion has gone past some of what I was saying.

fun stuff.
I'll let you believe what you like.

victor

[peteski]

Victor, I remember the bulb grease thread on the A-board quite well (and the specific and direct questions I asked to which I heard no answers - we went around in circles for quite a while before giving up).

[victor miranda]

Hi peteski,

I recall the thread differently.
you got answers you did not like.

try this web page....
they say some things you might believe.
http://machinedesign.com/archive/lubricating-electrical-switches

It is different from what I read about the 'new' commutator lubricants
and the technology for bulb grease.

victor

[mmagliaro]

That article from machinedesign seems to say what I intuitively would expect.
That contact lubricants aren't conductive.
That their purpose is to prevent corrosion.
And that the lubricant "pushes out of the way" when the contact is used so that the
electrical path is always from the metal to the metal (not "through the lubricant").

So back to the problem at hand.  A contact grease of some sort on the sleds and the axle backs
might prevent the corrosion. And if it does that, and doesn't keep the sled from touching the wheel,
then it may help.
Of course, a thin layer of sticky grease or oil might end up attracting
dust and other particles, which might make the problem worse.

I'm game.  I can put some no-ox-id on the sleds of one of my 0-8-0 engines, and leave the other one alone.
And 6 months from now, maybe we will see a difference.

... or sooner if the untreated engine starts sputtering in a month, and the treated one still runs well.

Of course, unless I run the two engines for the same number of hours, under similar conditions (speeds, load, etc),
it won't be a scientific experiment.

[peteski]

Thus yet again Victor proves that we read the same exact info and understand it differently.  Here are some quotes from the website you referred to and they address the questions about lubricant conductivity.  Of course this describes switches, not model railroad electric pickups, but I agree with you that for this discussion they are similar enough (since they are bot metal-to-metal contacts with rub against each other).  Here are the main points I took away from reading that web page:

Lubricants improve switch performance in three ways. Primarily, they prevent environmental and galvanic corrosion on switch contacts. Airborne contaminants attack metals, causing oxides to gradually build up in pores until they reach the surface, where they impede current flow. Nonnoble contact surfaces and switches made of dissimilar metals are especially susceptible to moisture, oxygen, and aggressive gases.

Nothing in the above quote mentions the lubricant (or carbon created when arcing) becoming conductive.

Switches can be categorized as low or high-current devices, with 1 A being the dividing line between the two. For low-current switches, temperatures at the contacts are not high enough to displace oxides, so surface protection (from oxidation by using proper lubricant - this was added by me) is most critical.

Lubricants in large quantities act as insulators. So it's not surprising that some people mistakenly think that lubricants used on switch contacts need to be electrically conductive. Curiously, there is virtually no difference in contact resistance between lubricated and unlubricated contacts.

To work on switches, lubricants must not interfere with metal-to-metal contact. A switch's contacts may appear smooth, but under a microscope, they would resemble a landscape of tiny peaks (asperities) and valleys. Current flows only where the peaks touch. So, the actual contact area is considerably smaller than the apparent contact area, sometimes less than 1% of the apparent area. The normal force on the contact is distributed across these asperities, so the pressure is high, typically hundreds of pounds per square inch. This pressure easily forces lubricants out of the contact zone and lets the contacts make metal-to-metal connections.

As for using bulb grease to lubricate moving metal contacts on model trains, IMO, that it is not optimal (but better than no lubrication at all).  Bulb grease was designed simply to protect static (not moving) metal contacts from moisture and oxidation.

[victor miranda]

... gee, peteski, I think you left out a paragraph from that web page.

I said you would believe it.

the writers of that  page may well have evaluated the comm lube or bulb grease
and found it was snake oil.  They are selling their own product

I am unable to find the blerbs I read about comm lube...

I am not hunting all that hard either...
I seem to find the products for sale and they are without sales pitches.
... no promises of performance as it were.
an example...http://www.amazon.com/Bachmann-Trains-Lube-Conductive-Contact/dp/B000BQ0904

now  ole peteski here hit on one of the single biggest reasons I use bulbgrease
in particular -->in Atlas Diesels and CAPP tender pickups<--
here is the quote: "(but better than no lubrication at all)"

they must be lubricated. there is absolutly no doubt on that front.
I have not found better lubricant for this service... yet.
Maybe one day Atlas will share the stuff they use.

Max, as far as I know know, your no-ox-id is thicker than bulb grease
(from description it sounds like what Atlas uses)
If so, I suspect it is too thick for good sled service.

google search AGS-BG1-BULB-GREASE

this is the stuff I use.

I have at least one comm lube and it evaporates and leaves a sticky layer.
my experience with bulbgrease on sleds has not been clean and clear.
in that It improves the Hudson tender.  pick-up seems better and it rolls a little easier than without.

the same can't be said about the 2-10-2... I find getting reliable pick-up from that tender a struggle
the MT springs are the single best thing to add... buuuut it is finicky and bulb grease does not fix the
problems I get....  I have not tinkered with the lifelike 0-8-0 mine seems to run well.
If I hit it with bulbgrease, I don't remember doing it.

luck
victor

[VonRyan]

My head hurts....

Just rub the contacts with a 10000 grit stone and be done with it.

[peteski]

My head hurts....

Yes, we sometimes take things too far, don't we?   

Speaking of going way out, there was another thread on A-board about various nickel-silver alloys used for N scale rails. IIRC, there was talk about using spectroscopy to determine the composition of the various alloys.

[victor miranda]

My head hurts....

Just rub the contacts with a 10000 grit stone and be done with it.

and I have a tee shirt from the peteski whirled tour from 2012...
you get used to the pain.
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=69729

If the polishing was all that was needed to get the 0-8-0 and cc 2-10-2 sleds to work...
we would be discussing how to get mt couplers to open reliably instead.

.... even if you can get axle cups cleaned out that way,
I can state you will need a lubricant in there after you clean it.

part of this discussion is how to add "reliable" to the operations.
with an 0-8-0 very slow speed and dead stupid reliable pick-up
are required to have fun shunting cars.

one way to get good reliable pick-up is to clean everything.
another is to use a solid lump of lead that looks like a tender.
another is to add cone and axle point pick-ups.

cleaning every thing before you start shunting sucks a lot of the fun out of the day.
tenders made of lead are problematic... (why do children ALWAYS eat the lead tenders first?)
and adding new trucks costs additional coin on an already over priced model...

so these discussions of how to re-work existing electrical pick-ups come up.

my opinion is the best path is to use kato Mike trucks, then b-mann tender trucks with CAPP
(pssst add bulb grease to the cones)

in this round I think Max is trying to see/understand why the 0-8-0 sleds are not effective
when compared to the Hudson.

victor

[mmagliaro]

Thankfully, Victor's long summary correctly lists everything that is in my head about why
I started this thread.

The real nut of it is that after cleaning the wheels and the track, the 0-8-0 still ran lousy until I cleaned those sleds.

But the sleds (and the grooves in the wheel backs) are the parts of the system that should be the most impervious to dirt because they do not touch the track and they are shielded under the tender!  While I agree with Victor's list of 3
ways to make the engine run reliably, it is annoying to me that the sleds can't be cleaned and mostly be expected
to just stay clean.   I'm looking for a way to keep them cleaner.

(Incidentally, an 0-8-0 with a 5.25:1 gearhead in it, with a maximum speed of about 15 mph, is quite a joy
to do switching with!)