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Silly question. I bought this tower new old stock and hooked up and realized the rotating men in tower are going wrong way. I cannot change the mans  orientation or position as they have specific  moulded posts they stand on. I have tried to change position by changing the power connection. I even reversed the wire connections  inside the tower coming from the motor. It operates well , just the wrong way, the men rotate backwards.Any tips. I must be doing something silly.Al  allan.bisback@gmail.com

Last edited by Al B
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Is it truly a post-war or mpc/LTI #192 Control Tower, or a more modern one that doesn't use the washers with fingers? (does it have a rectangular gearbox underneath the men on the underside of the room the men spin around in?)  The exact model number would help here.

If it's a more recent one, it sounds like the wiring maybe got crossed at the motor.  I couldn't find an actual service manual with an internal schematic on Lionel's site, but I'm pretty sure these are DC motors with a diode on one leg to make it spin in the proper direction.  If the diode is on the wrong leg, it would spin the wrong direction. 

(I intentionally did this years ago for an airplane pylon to get it to spin "backwards" (after having of course also made an adapter to have the plane sit backwards so it wouldn't spin tail-first )

-Dave

Last edited by Dave45681

It is 6-32988, the more recent version. It does not have washers with fingers. I have those on my ford rotating tower and know how finicky they can be. 

It has the rectangular gearbox underneath the top tower floor. Looking underneath of the rotating mast base grease is ok  and it doesn't look worn at all, looks brand new. 

I did switch the wires coming out of the motor, no impact. Perhaps I need to take it apart and look into the rectangular gearbox. Not a big issue, I could always buy a new one, they are not expensive. Its just silly.

Yes, the way you initially swapped them would be the same effect as if you swapped the wires from the transformer at either the base of the accessory or the transformer end, so it won't help here.

On the similar 6-24153 model I just looked at, the diode is under shrink tubing on the red wire before it leads into the black housing of the gearbox, Just like Lionel Parts said. (I was probably thinking of another accessory when I suggested the diode was inside the case itself.  Unless that small difference could have happened when they made the 32988)

Good luck.  It sounds a lot like it simply was manufactured wrong, with the wire including the diode on the wrong terminal of the motor.

-Dave

Last edited by Dave45681

And don't forget, it's a bit of a "kick in the pants" to those who took time to post a response, since their effort is then wiped out and no one else can benefit from it.

It's a lot better in the future if one of us remembers, "oh yeah, we had a thread on that a few months ago" rather than the topic potentially being started from scratch.

-Dave

Good point folks. I put title back in order for other folks to reference similar problem. 

I removed motor housing and reversed the wires on motor, reattached the diode and now direction is as designed. Seems wired were incorrectly attached at factory. 


Tower men on duty are now getting dizzy going backward.

Al

I had the same exact issue with my Control Tower.  First it didn't run and I had to disassemble it to see what was going on.  Looking at the gears, everything ran fine when the cover was off.  When I screwed the gear box back together, I had to make it pretty tight in order for it to work.  Mine has a "break" in the gear so after making one revolution, it sticks and pauses for several seconds, before resuming.   Is this how it is supposed to work?

I also did the same as you and the removed motor housing, reversed the wires on motor, reattached the diode but the men still goes backward.  At this point, the men revolve backwards and pause every quarter turn or so (one revolution of the gear).

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