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What is a split chassis?
Traditional model railway locomotives transfer power from track to motor via wires. However, a split chassis locomotive works in a different way.
A traditional model railway locomotive picks up its power from the track through its metal wheels. Those wheels have fine brass pick ups gently rubbing against either the back of them or the axle to further transfer power to a set of wires that feeds a motor. Power is then returned to the opposite rail in a similar way to complete the circuit.
The principles of a split chassis locomotives are the same as far as the power entering on one side and exiting on the other with some motor action somewhere in between. The difference is in the absence of any wires.
A split chassis locomotive will pick up power through the wheels as usual but then transfer it via its axle to one half of a split metal chassis. The motor makes contact with the chassis through contact springs and completes the circuit be replicating this action on the other half of the chassis. The two halves of the chassis are isolated from each other using nylon bushes to prevent a short circuit.
In principle, there's nothing wrong with a split chassis design but converting one to DCC will involve a little more work as there are no wires to splice into. Instead, modellers are required to isolate the contact springs between motor and chassis. Once the motor is successfully isolated, wires can be installed to connect the chassis to a decoder and the decoder to the motor to complete the circuit.
Posted in: Rolling stock
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