I have some old lionel conventional engines. GP 7 (Southern) made in the 50's and a Spirit of 76. They both run excellent. Perform as expected. The have the Old style motor in the front truck. E-unit Etc. Nothing on the rear truck. Both Pickup rollers are on the front truck. When it crosses a swtich they momentairly lose power causing the eunit to switcvh in to neutral. (does nto happen all the time). My question is, short of adding another pickup roller on the rear truck. can a nine volt battery be added to these and wired in in to avoid the tempoary loss of power? I dont want to lock the E-Unit out into one position only, because I do use these engines for switching purposes.
--Black Diamond-- One thing about a train, it doesnt matter where it's going, You just have to decide to get on... Woo Wooo.....
I doubt it. Those conventional motors operate on AC voltage, a nine volt battery is DC.
The reason you see nine volt batteries in current production locomotives is they now use DC motors. AC voltage from the tracks is converted to DC through circuit boards and then fed to the motors. The on-board battery keep things going through voltage interruptions.
No reason you can't try, but I wouldn't be too sure of the results. You won't hurt anything in there at any rate.
The engines you describe are from the Lionel MPC 70s era. A rear pickup assembly can be easily added. Other than that keep the wheels and track clean.
"IT's GOOD TO BE THE KING",by Mel Brooks
Charter Member- Tardis Train Crew (TTC) - Detroit3railers- Detroit Historical society Glancy Modular trains- Charter member BTTS
How about using a capacitor instead?
A capacitor is very much like a small battery; so the same considerations of AC versus DC apply to it.
However, there is a fairly simple modification, that is usually done to reduce the buzzing of a noisy e-unit, to convert the AC voltage at the e-unit coil to DC. It was described, poorly, in the July issue of CTT. I posted these comments and corrections:
I just read the article "Installing a rectifier--close up" in the July, 2015, CTT. It has some problems:
"The text says to solder the + and - rectifier terminals to the e-unit terminals and to disconnect the coil wires and reconnect them to the ~ rectifier terminals. This is just backwards from the way it should be. Not only will it not work this way, but there will be a heavy load placed on the transformer, that is, until the rectifier burns out.
"The photograph shows the right connections, except for a typo in the wire labels: 'Negative wire to black coil' should be 'Negative wire to back coil wire'.
"The rectifier that he used is way overqualified at 400 volts and 4 amperes. There's no electrical reason not to use it; but a 50-volt 1.4-ampere part the size of an aspirin tablet will work just as well and can be mounted by its leads directly onto the e-unit, alleviating the space and fragility problems that he mentions."
This modification, done properly, does make it possible to slow down the e-unit operation by putting a capacitor across its coil.
Bob Nelson
Now that I think about it, I dont even think adding a nine volt battery if possible would be a wise choice. Everytime you power down the engine, the battery would go dead. A pickup roller is probaly the best way to fix that. Thanks for all the info. Plus to unplug the battery you would have to remove the shell off everytime.
To change the batterys in my MTH steamers I've got to remove the tender shell. Not really a hassle, but luckily I don't need to do it all that often.
A capacitor across a DC-operated e-unit coil also "goes dead" in a short time after track voltage goes to zero. The trick is that it can hold enough charge to get across a momentary pickup interruption, but not enough charge to prevent you from cycling the e-unit when you want to. Then it recharges almost instantly when track voltage is restored.
There's no need ever to open up the locomotive.
It would help if we knew what kind of track you are using. 022 switches can have the end of the fat rail bent down and this will cause a momentary interruption in the power. If you find this problem and you are running coil couplers with sliding shoes, the couplers may operate when they slide over the end of the fat rail. When you bend the fat rail, take this into consideration.
BTW, the 711/721 prewar 072 switches have the problem of operating coild couplers when the sliding shoe goes across the fat rail. I don't have a solution for this problem.
Even MPC tested the roller spacing to make sure power would not interrupt over a swicth. Are you using PW switches for this?
Test this out by moving the train very slow over the switch until is stops dead. Then carefully examine the rollers and try to determine if they are both on dead spots. At least one should be in contact with a rail. Try jumping a wire with power to the center rail the roller is touching. If the engine powers on the switch has a bad connection ( a common problem with O27 switches). If the engine does not power on there is a problem with the roller.
Black Diamond I have some old lionel conventional engines. GP 7 (Southern) made in the 50's and a Spirit of 76. They both run excellent. Perform as expected. The have the Old style motor in the front truck. E-unit Etc. Nothing on the rear truck. Both Pickup rollers are on the front truck. When it crosses a swtich they momentairly lose power causing the eunit to switcvh in to neutral. (does nto happen all the time). My question is, short of adding another pickup roller on the rear truck. can a nine volt battery be added to these and wired in in to avoid the tempoary loss of power? I dont want to lock the E-Unit out into one position only, because I do use these engines for switching purposes.
I would suggest you add the pick-up roller. It is easy!!
I had this same issue with a GP9 # 6-8654 from the MPC days. I installed a pick-up assembly from a post war 202 ALCO to the non-motor truck. It fit perfect to the GP9 truck and then I just ran the wire up to the power side of the e-unit. Problem solved. Never even had to remove the truck from the frame. Did have to remove shell to install the wire. When done it will looks like the picture attached. You will need (1) 600-36 collector assembly(1) 2228-170 collector insulation(1) 2332-109 insulation washer (1) collector mounting screw #6 x5/16
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
KRMI would suggest you add the pick-up roller. It is easy!!
MPC started doing this exactly in 1970-1971 with the 8030 and 8031 diesels:
Rob
ADCX Rob KRM I would suggest you add the pick-up roller. It is easy!! MPC started doing this exactly in 1970-1971 with the 8030 and 8031 diesels:
KRM I would suggest you add the pick-up roller. It is easy!!
I never knew that Rob. Makes one wonder why they quit doing it? My 6-8654 was built in 1976.
A couple of reasons, probably. First, they redesigned the 8030-100 power truck by 1972 to eliminate the hollow "scout" type rollers extending the distance between the two pickups, while continuing the extra pickups for a while, and then costs likely them kept them from continuing beyond that point. They were continued on the Santa Fe and Long Island horn-equipped diesels in 1973, as well as the F3 models that were re-introduced that year, as well as the rectifier electrics soon following.
Thanks Rob, guess from what I see their fix did not work and money took over the day. Sad. Nothing new when bottom line lookers forget about quality.
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