I'm troubleshooting a set that had the tether rewired. I wanted to verify that the connections are correct. It uses the 4-pin connectors.
Also, are replacement tethers still available?
Thanks
Bob
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I'm troubleshooting a set that had the tether rewired. I wanted to verify that the connections are correct. It uses the 4-pin connectors.
Also, are replacement tethers still available?
Thanks
Bob
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Bob,
If you cannot find a new one I think I have a couple good used ones.
Scott
Thanks Scott
If I can't find new ones, I'll get back to you.
Bob
Does your engine run?
Marty
Lead unit runs normally. I'm pretty sure that all 3 units run forward (I don't think the lead A is dragging the other 2). Under TMCC, I reverse the units and I get no lights in the trailing A. The lead A's wheels slip and train does not move.
The current tether is homemade, so I need to verify the wiring and/or get a replacement. The prior owner says it was running normally, but it did arrive with 2 bad connections to one tether plug that I repaired.
Bob
I've never found a wiring diagram for these, you may simply have to trace out the wires and figure it out. I thought these had 6 or 8 wires and not four.
This set has 4 wires. I have a K-Line PRR ABA PA-1/PB-1 set that has 8 wire tethers.
I've taken 2 of the units apart so far. There is a 4 wire plug inside the lead A, and a 2 wire plug inside the B unit. The B only needs motor power, the trailing A needs motor and lights. I need to pull apart the last unit.
The internal plugs are intact, so I may just get replacement tethers and be done with it.
Bob
What is in the other units? I Upgrade an ABA set and K-Line slave the Trail Cruise board to the Lead unit. Interesting how things where soldered on the slave boards. As John said no diagram, so reverse engineering. If no slave board the wiring should be straight forward as far as leads to get the Trail A motor, coupler and lights to work, but I would have thought more leads needed too? 2 for AC, 2 for Motor and 1 each for light and coupler using chassis ground as return. G
I'm surprised they get all that done with four wires if there's no logic. You need to isolated wires for the motors, that leaves only two for the lights and couplers. I suppose they could return them to track common...
RRDOC posted:This set has 4 wires. I have a K-Line PRR ABA PA-1/PB-1 set that has 8 wire tethers.
I've taken 2 of the units apart so far. There is a 4 wire plug inside the lead A, and a 2 wire plug inside the B unit. The B only needs motor power, the trailing A needs motor and lights. I need to pull apart the last unit.
The internal plugs are intact, so I may just get replacement tethers and be done with it.
Bob
If you can get the original tethers, restore it to original. It looks to be a really nice set.
gunrunnerjohn posted:I'm surprised they get all that done with four wires if there's no logic. You need to isolated wires for the motors, that leaves only two for the lights and couplers. I suppose they could return them to track common...
That is how early TMCC with LCRU was done, and even Steam Modular to save harness wire. G
Yep, and I thought it was low class back then too. You're just asking for trouble taking your common through wheels, the track, and more wheels.
Really? Same place the board get power in the first place. Never had a misfire with TMCC using that method, nor PS-1 which does the same thing. We are not flying these:-) But run those extra wires, just don't pinch one! G
Thanks guys
I'll let you know what I find when I open up the last unit and trace the wires. Our modular group is displaying at the RR museum of Pennsylvania in Strasbug this weekend, so I have not had time to look at them.
The units are from 2004. K-25301. The Legacy K-line site lists them as 4 motor units, but they are 6 motor.
Bob
Take pictures. I looked at my notes on the ABA I did. I do believe only 4 motors. Had K-Line Cruise 4.0 in the Lead and used a K-Line Cruise 1.0 Motor Driver in the trail unit. G
Apparently K-Line did a number of variations with these ABA units. I had one with six motors and they were all driven from a single stock Lionel DCDR. Needless to say, it was working pretty hard.
I'll take all 3 units apart next week and take pictures.
Thanks
Bob
I traced the tethers. 2 leads (black and red) power all 6 motors in the 3 units. 2 leads supply the headlight and the number board lights in the trailing A. They are the purple wires that come off the board just below the orange disc capacitor in the picture below (they are inline with the red/black 9V battery connector wires).
The trailing unit is below. The motor feed from the tether connects to the 2 black wires at the bottom. They go to the small circuit board to the left which has the 2 large capacitors across the blue and brown motor feeds. Motor power also supplies the MARS circuit board on the right. The MARS light is only on when the motors are running and intensity varies with speed. The other 2 leads in the tether feed the lights to the number boards and headlight.
The B unit (not shown) has the 2 motor wires tapped off the pass-through tether, and the little circuit board with the capacitors distributing power to the 2 motors like in the trailing A.
I got all 3 units working. Besides the broken tether, the motor mount screws in the lead A were loose and the gears were slipping in reverse.
The headlight and number lights in the trailing A are still not working. I tested the rear headlight output (purple wires) on the lead A and there is no voltage. I wonder if the circuit was shorted when the tether wires came loose. Is this possibly a component level repair, or does the entire board need to be replaced?
By the way, despite having rollers on all 3 units, the power pickup is in the lead A only. There are no wires connected to the rollers in the B and trailing A.
Bob
K-Line did some interesting stuff. G
So does Lionel and MTH.
I just got a RailKing subway set in for repair, a lot of the green marker lights didn't work for some reason. Of the four cars, one worked perfectly, the other three all had issues. When I opened them up, I found that MTH, for reasons I can only imagine, wired the green and red front/rear markers in parallel! OOPS! The green LED's run at a higher voltage than the red ones, so unless you got really lucky with the variances in the specifications, you didn't get green markers! The difference isn't much, just .2 volts, just enough to screw things up.
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