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gunrunnerjohn posted:
Moonman posted:

Well, how about the other obvious answer - LionChief and LionChief+ are designed to run off of AC/DC.    THUNDERSTRUCK

I believe the LC uses FET drivers for motor control.

yes, John, but it is an answer to the OP's question:

 "How many, if any, 3-rail trains will run on a ho-style DC transformer?" 

Which followed the first obvious answer of the MPC era DC motored engines.

OK, I should have been a bit more clear about what I’m trying to do.

I want to run these automatically, running each train for about 20 min at a time on a schedule.  I do not want to have a party and have to sit in the train room all the time.  Basically I want to set it and forget it.

The sets I have…

  • Polar Express
  • North Pole Central
  • A Christmas Story
  • Santa Flyer
  • Holiday Subway (Basically 2 car NYC subway repainted in Red/White/Green)
  • Trolley Car

All were bought new within the past 10 years, probably since 2013 or 2014.  All came with a CW-40 or CW-80 and no remote control.

They need to run forwards, most likely no reversing.  I don’t need any bling/effects like sound or smoke.  I can rewire if need be.

I said HO Style so that people understand what I’m using for power, basic DC.  I am making four 10 amp, full wave rectified power supplies that will go through a pulse wave modulation motor controller to the track.  The PWM units will be controlled by a Raspberry Pi.  Hench I need to control the locos with DC.

I concur with Rusty on this one.

I started a similar thread quite a while back in the "S" forum (because I was referring to the "universal" motors in my AF 300 and 310, which have neither smoke or sound). I had often heard these engines would run "better" and cooler" on DC and wanted to see for myself.

I came over from HO, and have several nice "power packs", but I found that the amps(?) needed to run these old open-frame motors would typically over load those packs. I eventually found an older (pre-zip code) MRC unit that, for whatever reason, is fully capable of running those Flyer locos without shutting down...it also works great with my DC-powered All Nation Ten Wheeler.

Having said all that, I usually run those Flyer engines in AC with a small-ish MRC 027 unit; I like it because unlike post-war Flyer or Lionel transformers, it begins at 0 volts...

Mark in Oregon

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