Skip to main content

Obviously there has been a ton of discussion on this item.  Out of curiosity, I bit for this one to see what the details were - and who does not need a loco you can take to the train club and run all day?  Many comments have ranged from wheel position to couplers, etc.  Mine has not had any of these issues in spite of the fact that the USPS tried to destroy it.  It runs well, No short or sparking issues and cosmetics are acceptable for this price point

The comment has also been made that the jack rabbit start problem has been resolved (relative to comments on the 2.0 I think) and some run this loco at reduced voltage to solve the problem. Based on my experience, the start is not solved, and this unit's start up compares unfavorably with what we all expect from the lion chief benchmark.  In comparing this unit with entry level lion chief units, it is still clearly deficient in this speed of starting issue and general speed control.  If you look at the video below, the locomotive comes alive at that handheld setting you see and runs immediately at the speed you see.  If you plan to position a car to drop off any milk cans, that is not happening.

So, with that rambling introduction, here is the question.  It appears the Menards motors are wired in parallel like the Williams two motor locomotives.  A solution in that case was to wire the motors in series and not parallel.  I looked but found no thread on whether anyone has tried this - just curious.   Since they are not fly wheel motors, is there any reason this change would not help?

Attachments

Videos (1)
PXL_20220128_221954065
Last edited by hokie71
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Putting the motors in series is a big improvement.  Slow speed start and running is much better plus no worry at the top end that a grandchild is going to send it into space.

Here is the after and before, I used wago nuts on the blue and white wires to the motors.

After:

102_7879102_7878



Here are the videos.  the first is the slow speed start up and the second is 80% throttle.

Attachments

Images (2)
  • 102_7879
  • 102_7878
Videos (2)
PXL_20220201_202033847
PXL_20220201_202311905
@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

@TheRambles yes, it is easy to find the blue and white wires, since they have a plug on the main board you can trace them. The white wire connecting the two wagos was added and connects the snipped blue on one motor and white on the other

Thank you @hokie71 . This change seems to make these Loco's much less loco if you know what I mean. I, too, use a 180 Watt Powerhouse and as shipped, these fly even at the lowest settings. Thanks again for sharing.

@BOB WALKER posted:

As far as I recall, there are no dual motor engines shipped from the factory wired in series. My experience with rewiring parallel wired motors to series has been positive. Of course, this is not an appropriate wiring change for metered flywheel equipped motors.

K line had a series parallel switch on some of their locos.

I series wire everything that can be done.

@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

@TheRambles yes, it is easy to find the blue and white wires, since they have a plug on the main board you can trace them. The white wire connecting the two wagos was added and connects the snipped blue on one motor and white on the other

I run my KW at 10v and its manageable but series is much better.

With the parallel to series conversion originally discussed here and demonstrated by @hokie71 (thank you for the proof of concept and great job!), the electrical load of the motors on the motor driver board has been divided by 4 from the original configuration.

Now I have a question ? do you think A second unit can be linked  via a tether  so both units 4 motors can be run off of  1 receiver board?

In theory this new proposed arrangement should work with each pair of motors wired in series and each series pair wired together in parallel across the driver outputs.

In this dual loco MU arrangement, the combined electrical motor load on a single motor driver board's output would be half that of the factory motor wiring configuration.

I would speculate that with this alternate series/parallel arrangement, that the relative speed of the consist may increase somewhat over the first series wiring modification discussed above, but still be slower than stock.

Last edited by SteveH

Now I have a question ? do you think A second unit can be linked  via a tether  so both units 4 motors can be run off of  1 receiver board?

Not sure if you were planning to use the same engine, but i have two of the LionChief Santa Fe units and they both respond to one remote.  I reversed the motor plug to the board on one engine so i can run an ABA unit with the second A unit backwards.

Add Reply

Post

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×