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I find this rather odd,  so please bear with me.

When I first purchased my Fastrack, I also picked up a set of those little track "connectors"; I then used a set of them to get power from this:

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To this: (1999 Korean-built)...

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Now, those connectors are pretty small, so I used appropriate-sized wire. Soldered wires to connectors, attached connectors to track, and off we went.

Everything seemed "ok" except that there was a voltage drop (as expected, I suppose); and when I hit the "bell" button, the whistle would kick in, and when I hit the "whistle" button, the bell would sound! I found this weird, but figured it was due to an analog power supply trying to play with the more sophisticated sound system ("Signal Sounds") in the tender.

I really wanted to address the drop in voltage, so I removed the Lionel connectors, I took a length of lamp wire and soldered that directly to a piece of track,  and tried that set-up.

Not only did that fix the voltage drop, but I now have a much better range of speed control, and the "whistle" and "bell" buttons work correctly!

Could this all be because of the larger gauge wire(s)? That's the only thing that I changed...

Mark in Oregon

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bmoran4 posted:

The Bell and Whistle reversal is because the DC offset is reversed. Simply fixed by swapping the track leads at the transformer. This is noted on the second to last and pages of the manual:

https://www.modelrectifier.com...r%20Dual%20AH601.pdf

Thanks for that. 

Although mine is a slightly different unit (mine doesn't have "control handles" for example), I'd guess the above would apply regardless...

Mark in Oregon

Last edited by Strummer

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