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I had this re-built a couple of months ago.  I got it back and he took out my stud rectifiers and put the disc type back in.   I got the stud back in and it will not blow a railsounds horn or whistle tender.  Disconnected the stud wire and put in a Diode which I had in for 10 years and Whistle or horn on sound board will not activate.  I am getting about a 5v increase when switch is activated so why won't the sound boards work.  He told me when I picked it up that it would not operate modern electronics.  But I thought this up grades would allow for that....Any opinions??

Marty

 

 

I

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I have ZWs (and other transformers) with original rectifier disc that work on modern equipment as well as ZWs (and other transformers) that have been upgraded with 1N1190AR type diodes.

As others have said, there are two whistle/horn positions. I find my modern electronics are most reliable with moving the control half way on a ZW.

As others have said, there are two whistle/horn positions. I find my modern electronics are most reliable with moving the control half way on a ZW.

That is the "pickup" position. The whistle control was never meant to be left in that position, which puts the full load through the rectifier. When in the "holding" position, a resistor is placed in parallel with the rectifier, sharing the load.

Is using the whistle control in such a fashion problematic? ----- I don't know.

 

C W Burfle posted:

As others have said, there are two whistle/horn positions. I find my modern electronics are most reliable with moving the control half way on a ZW.

That is the "pickup" position. The whistle control was never meant to be left in that position, which puts the full load through the rectifier. When in the "holding" position, a resistor is placed in parallel with the rectifier, sharing the load.

Is using the whistle control in such a fashion problematic? ----- I don't know.

 

Yup. The half way position also slows trains. You don't get the boost from the full position.

Oddly enough all my RailSounds II/III locomotives will trigger with the whistle lever on full, but my Williams and MTH locomotives need it in the half way position. It's like Lionel engineered there stuff in the 90's to work with a ZW.

Last edited by Lou1985

I have a 1044 with a stud rectifier in it and it works good, so problem to me seems to be in ZW whistle switch...

When it left the factory, the five volt boost was wired in series with the rectifier disk. In an earlier post, you mentioned seeing the 5 volt increase.  Maybe your switch isn't wired correctly.

You can test your rectifier / diodes with an ohmmeter. Set your meter to it's lowest range for ohms. With the transformer unplugged, and the control handles set to zero, touch one lead to each side of the rectifier. It may or may not show any value. Exchange the two leads.
If it showed a value before the exchange, it should not show a value afterwards.
Conversely, if it did not show a value before the exchange, it should show a value afterwards.
If it always shows a value, or never shows a value, then there is an issue.

One more comment: The original Postwar Lionel whistle control systems often would not generate enough DC offset to operate the whistle relays when there was insufficient load on the transformer.
If your trains are all modern era units with can motors, that could be your issue.

The answer for Postwar was to increase the load by either adding more cars to the train, or hooking up additional loads, like light bulbs (not LED's) on the same circuit as the train.

Many folks try to test postwar whistling tenders with nothing else on the transformer. Sometimes they work alone, other times not.

The Lionel test benches that had internal whistles to test transformer whistle controls (instead of meters) had an extra coil to increase the load on the whistle control under test.

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