 Joined: 27/06/2012(UTC) Posts: 3,478 Location: Holland
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According to todays German newspaper der Badische Zeitung, a defect Model railroad transformer possibly causes a fire.   TRANSLATION:
Model railroad transformer possibly cause of fire.
A fire in a a roof structure in Betzenhausen caused a loss of € 80.000,=
The fire was reported at 14:40 yesterday, around 15:00 the fire was extinguished.
No one was injured.
The man who had discovered the fire, was examined for smoke inhalation, but had no serious injuries.
According to the police a defect in the transformer of a model railway may be the cause of the fire.
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 5 users liked this useful post by kweekalot
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 Joined: 01/03/2008(UTC) Posts: 2,883 Location: South Western France
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It is indeed a scare of mine! My train room has smoke detectors and two fire extinguishers... Don't ever leave your layout under power if you're not in the train room! Call me paranoid...but my boss used to say "Only the paranoid survive..."  Cheers |
Jacques Vuye aka Dr.Eisenbahn
Once a vandal, learned to be better and had great success! |
4 users liked this useful post by jvuye
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 Joined: 14/03/2005(UTC) Posts: 15,870 Location: Gibraltar, Europe
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Always unplug or isolate the transformers and power supplies from the mains when you leave the room.
My pet hate is people leaving phone chargers permanently plugged into the mains. Although they have been making them much safer over the years there is always the risk that they can go wrong when there is no-one around. |
Ray
Mostly Marklin.Selection of different eras and European railways
Small C track layout, control by MS2, 100+ trains but run 4-5 at a time.
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1 user liked this useful post by RayF
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 Joined: 23/08/2006(UTC) Posts: 2,597 Location: Beverly, MA
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Hi all,
A home/flat/apartment should have fire extinguishers,in the kitchen(the usual place for a fire) a fireplace and a one near an oil finance,if that is what you have.Keeping a few around the layout and shop wouldn't hurt either.
Your layout transformers should be plugged into a protected power strip and that is how you make sure everything is powered off.It's called a switch.
D
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1 user liked this useful post by kbvrod
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 Joined: 17/09/2006(UTC) Posts: 18,771 Location: New Zealand
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Originally Posted by: RayF  Always unplug or isolate the transformers and power supplies from the mains when you leave the room. I always unplug my layout from the mains supply whenever it is not in use. A friend in our Marklin Club who had a large H0 layout (900 sq ft) had a lightening strike on his house, which cooked his 6021 / 6051 controllers / boosters and rendered the layout inoperable until they were replaced / repaired. The same person is now building a large G1 layout (22m x 10m) in a purpose built basement, and that room has surge protectors installed on the mains outlets.
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1 user liked this useful post by Bigdaddynz
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 Joined: 22/01/2009(UTC) Posts: 14,875 Location: On 1965 Märklin Boulevard just around from Roco Square
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In one of the Märklin magazines, (years ago) there was this collector who had a Gauge 1 layout and his son was never allowed to go in the room by hmiself (220 Volts locos), any after his father died he commissioned someone to rewire the whole layout so he and his children can be save but you wouldn't believe it, the whole layout caught fire and was completely destroyed. |
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1 user liked this useful post by river6109
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Joined: 31/12/2010(UTC) Posts: 3,994 Location: Paremata, Wellington
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Originally Posted by: RayF Always unplug or isolate the transformers and power supplies from the mains when you leave the room.
My pet hate is people leaving phone chargers permanently plugged into the mains. Although they have been making them much safer over the years there is always the risk that they can go wrong when there is no-one around. Agreed, and not only is there the risk of failure, but you have all these millions of chargers, plugged in, consuming a small amount of power each, doing nothing other than generating heat, and we seem happy to pay for it. I'm guilty of it as well, but we do have most of the phone/ipod chargers on one strip so when they are not in use they can be all turned off and you can easily see the consumption drop in the power meter. Cookee |
Cookee Wellington  |
1 user liked this useful post by cookee_nz
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Joined: 15/03/2003(UTC) Posts: 9,593 Location: Australia
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Just try and get a teenager to switch off her Iphone, IPad, Laptop and hairdyer.  |
Adrian Australia flag by abFlags.com |
2 users liked this useful post by xxup
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Joined: 27/06/2012(UTC) Posts: 3,478 Location: Holland
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It is a pity that the newspaper did not mention what kind of transformer caught fire. On some mmr forums, you see a lot of hobbyists that still use the pre-war black transformers, mounted directly on the (woorden) layout.  |
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2 users liked this useful post by kweekalot
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Joined: 14/03/2005(UTC) Posts: 15,870 Location: Gibraltar, Europe
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These old transformers should really be consigned to the display cabinet. The insulating materials from that era were notorious for falling apart with time. No-one in his right mind should use one of these except in the most carefully monitored conditions, and even then with a master off switch very easily to hand and a fire extinguisher ready!
Old trains will run just as well with a modern transformer to provide the power. Safety first! |
Ray
Mostly Marklin.Selection of different eras and European railways
Small C track layout, control by MS2, 100+ trains but run 4-5 at a time.
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3 users liked this useful post by RayF
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 Joined: 16/08/2006(UTC) Posts: 5,382 Location: Akershus, Norway
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A small warning
in our washing room, we have a rechargeable vacuum cleaner in a holder on the wall. It is charged by a small 12volt power supply, more or less permanently connected in the 230 Volt wall outlet. One day, passing it on the way to my train room, I detected a burnt smell. I noticed that the power supply's white housing suddenly was light brown. It was too warm to handle, so I used some kind of tool (cannot remember what) to pull it out of the wall outlet. I cut the wire and threw it all away (after cooling down)
Before connecting anything to the wall outlet, I will install a switch.
All my MMR power is connected via a central switch.
We have three smoke detectors connected via our alarm system. |
Best regards Svein, Norway
grumpy old sod
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2 users liked this useful post by intruder
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 Joined: 23/03/2012(UTC) Posts: 2,550 Location: Finland
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Thanks to all from warnings. I just went to train room and unplugged my rechargeable vacuum cleaner and iPad chargers... But also my layout power, CS2 with transformer, separate transformer for layout lights and accessories + one transformer for my Märklin My World series signals are all connected to a central switch before wall socket. My stereos below my layout are also connected through a different switch to other wall socket, but that switch is in very difficult place and I don't turn it off. Maybe I should, but I have never heard of an stereo amplifier or cd player to cause a fire...   Janne Edited by user 17 March 2014 12:49:20(UTC)
| Reason: typo newer => never |
Märklin H0 digital layout. I have analog and digital H0 Collection. Rolling stock mostly from era I, II, III and IV. Märklin 1 gauge beginner. |
1 user liked this useful post by Janne75
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Joined: 17/09/2006(UTC) Posts: 18,771 Location: New Zealand
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I have heard of instances where an amplifier caught fire, but this is a very very rare occurrence. Many high quality amplifiers are made to be on all the time, as the continual thermal stress of powering on and powering off can cause output transistors to blow - especially if the amplifier has a high inrush current when turned on.
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2 users liked this useful post by Bigdaddynz
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Joined: 13/12/2011(UTC) Posts: 233 Location: Masterton, New Zealand
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Originally Posted by: Bigdaddynz Many high quality amplifiers are made to be on all the time, as the continual thermal stress of powering on and powering off can cause output transistors to blow - especially if the amplifier has a high inrush current when turned on. I remember we used to leave our amplifiers the school hall on for a whole term at a time! We only ever turned the off in the holidays, if we actually remembered to! Someone used an isolating transformer to try and reduce the impact of a ground loop with the projector one day and it worked. A few months later we borrowed one from the woodwork room, we had some All Blacks visiting for the rugby world cup and we wanted to try and stop the flickering picture. It tripped almost every circuit breaker in the hall and we were expecting 1200 people to arrive in 5 minutes. It was the first time the amplifiers had been off in a about two months! I was glad to get it all going again. Carrying the transformer back to the other side of the school on the other hand was another matter. This was the small one, it only weighed 25kgs! Moral of the story... Get everything (well, almost everything) that connects to the mains tested every few years. Especially if it was made in the last century! I did have a vacuum cleaner catch fire.. Daniell
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1 user liked this useful post by DigitalNZ
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Joined: 16/02/2004(UTC)
Posts: 15,443
Location: DE-NW
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Originally Posted by: kweekalot According to today's German newspaper der Badische Zeitung, a defect Model railroad transformer possibly causes a fire. No further news about this fire yet, so we don't know what caused the fire. Might well be that they write "transformer" but actually refer to "power supply". I remember a case where a fire was caused by a defective laptop power supply. Owner let the supply plugged in all the time. Insurance company didn't pay because they said the device was not made for perpetual operation. In general it's a good idea to disconnect all consumers that are not needed and that don't have a primary switch (some computers have a primary switch at the back, some don't even have one). And maybe one day we'll get further information about the cause of the fire at Betzenhausen. |
Regards Tom --- "In all of the gauges, we particularly emphasize a high level of quality, the best possible fidelity to the prototype, and absolute precision. You will see that in all of our products." (from Märklin New Items Brochure 2015, page 1) ROFLBTCUTS  |
1 user liked this useful post by H0
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Joined: 10/02/2006(UTC) Posts: 3,997
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I recently ran a wire across the basement to a single LED at the stairs - if the layout is powered up the LED is on, this way I can see it is on if I go upstairs. |
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Joined: 02/01/2014(UTC) Posts: 7 Location: Brisbane
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Hi everyone, The report about a laptop power supply blowing is correct because I have had two people blow them while using their laptops continually, so this is a nice warning to people with laptops don't use your laptop power supply continually it is meant to charge the battery ONLY Also I had a computer fried by a power short and our plasma TV has also shorted too in recent times
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