Restoring 1950s O gauge whistle tender

[Anonymous]

I've got an old 1950s era O gauge engine with a whistle tender that hasn't worked for as long as I can remember. It was my dad's train when he was a kid, and mine when I was young, so, say at least 30 years it hasn't worked. I took it apart and
for one the relay is shot and for 2, it looks like somebody tried to fix it but it's
wired all wrong. the pickup and the ground were wired to the same contact
on the whistle, but then the wires were cut later on (thankfully).
Anyway, I'm trying to replace the relay with something, but a off-the-shelf reed or micro-relay doesn't cut it. They activate on the AC power from the track and are
pretty much constant on. Does anybody know how this worked so that the original relay only activated on DC 3.5V from the whistle button?

Does anybody have a schematic for how it should be wired? (I figured out what should be connected to AC when the relay triggers. The whistle rattles a bit, but works other than that. I cleaned up the contacts and springs for the motor head.
Right now I'm going about trying to build an AC blocker via a Butterworth multi-stage low-pass filter, but the only size inductor you can conveniently buy (Radio Shack, I know I could order one online) is 100uH. and all the large capacitors are polarized. Still, I'm playing around with the limited passive components I have available.
Any advice?
Doug Hughes
Hagerstown, MD

[lionelsoni]

Doug, that is what is called a "slugged" relay. It has a heavy copper ring around the core next to the armature. This acts like a shorted secondary winding on a transformer, cancelling any flux that the coil, acting like a primary winding, tries to produce. However, DC current cannot induce a similar cancelling current in the ring, so the flux builds up and the relay operates.

The relay coil should be connected directly to the track voltage. One end of the coil should already be connected to the tender frame, the other should go to the tender's pickup.

You say that the relay is "shot". What's wrong with it? Is the coil burned out? Or are the contacts welded, or what? Maybe you can fix it. If not, it's not that hard to get a replacement. I would try that before trying to redesign it.

[Anonymous]

the winding is good (0 resistance). the armature has no spring back and the relay just doesn't seem to activate. If it did, it wouldn't pop back open. Where would one go to find a proper replacement? I can perhaps play with it a little more.

[Anonymous]

I have repaired many of these units but have never found the return spring bad, out of alinement yes.
If the little tabs at the rear are gone, you need to look for a new unit.
Dallee has a solid state unit that fits in the exact same spot called a super whistle and it works super and does not suffer the magnitizing effect that the lionel unit does. All the DC going through the unit after tends to magnitize the bottom flapper and it wants to stick to the coil and is engaged all the time.
If you have a bulk reel to reel tape eraser one shot with that and all the magnetism is gone. dave.

[Anonymous]

well, I can say magnetism isn't it. I can press the flapper away and it stays away and I can press the flapper tight and it stays tight. It just doesn't activate.

[lionelsoni]

There is no return spring. The armature returns by gravity, with the relay hanging from the single mounting screw.

Zero ohms is too little. I just measured a few and got about 15 ohms. If you still see zero resistance on rechecking it, look closely at the stack of terminals on the side to be sure that none of them are shorted together or to the frame. Zero suggests a short circuit outside the coil, whereas a reading between 0 and 15 ohms would indicate a short somewhere inside the coil.

Also, do you know that you're getting DC from the whistle circuit in the transformer? The copper-oxide rectifiers often fail.

[Anonymous]

I should have said effectively 0. the coil passes current. everything looks good there.
When you say it returns by gravity, the one I have must be different than the one you have. The flapper is mounted vertically and isn't effected by gravity in this one. Yes,
it's a new transformer and it produces approximately 3.75V DC (variable depending on AC dial setting. peak DC voltage is at about 50 on the AC dial). The relay itself is mounted perpendicular to the track and the flapper is aligned so that it is at the back (I think.. I suppose it could be at the front) of the tender with the hinged side being the
outermost part sitting on top of the whistle box. the hinge is vertical.

[Anonymous]

I strongly disagree with lionelsoni on the return spring. It is part of the contact assembly and are tiny little up bends in the spring plate that help the contacts fall apart. Take a magniging glass and look at a good one and note on the rear of the unit the tiny tabs that help the "armature" as lionel calls it.
If his unit sticks down and up it needs to be fixed by a pro or replaced.
If you read the instructions on whistle relays in the lionel repair book, you will see what I am talking about. Dave.

[lionelsoni]

I had never seen one mounted that way. But it seems that the WS175 whistle used in the 2671W tender was. They all used the same WSR1 relay. As far as I can see, there is no effective return spring on that armature. The tabs at the hinge seem to be meant to locate the armature but not particularly to open it. All I can imagine is that the contact pressure was meant to pu***he armature open and vibration and the lack of magnetic force to keep it open.

Do you detect any force at all on the armature when you activate the whistle control? Can you measure the actual resistance of the coil, to be sure it's okay?

You can see the repair instructions on http://pictures.olsenstoy.com/searchcd31.htm?itm=708

[Anonymous]

13.8 ohms across the coil, and after some cleaning, it does in fact work, but sticks. I don't have an industrial (or other degausser), but it looks like that is the next step. The wiring diagram is awesome! that's just what I was looking for.

[lionelsoni]

Congratulations!

A very small air gap between the armature and the magnet pole helps to stop sticking. An easy way to get that gap is to stick a scrap of tape, like masking tape, between armature and pole. It's easily removed if it doesn't help, so it's worth trying.

I have now examined about a half dozen of the loose relays that I have. Only one wants to come open with any reliability in a horizontal position. It is the one on which someone seems to have bent the ends of the 8th-inch-wide tabs back down (and none too neatly) to press against the armature behind the pivot. The "tiny tabs" that Dave mentioned, if I understand what he means, appear not to press against the pivot, but allow it to move back and forth about a 32nd of an inch. I think that they are there just to keep the armature captive in the pivot.

Doug, are the 8th-inch tabs on your relay generally straight but arching gently upward away from the armature toward the pivot, or have the ends been bent down like the one I described? If so, perhaps that is a factory modification for that tender. All of this may explain why Lionel made only one tender with the tender mounted that way.

[Anonymous]

It works!
Turns out, the thing probably was taken apart and put back together wrong at one point (no big surprise). After cleaning it all up, soldering on some new wires, cleaning the pickup, cleaning the brushes (though probably it would be better to have new ones since there isn't any "brush" left), it works! It's noisy as all get-out but it works.
Also, it turns out that there were two diagonal mounting holes and correponding screw holes and it
ended up mounting with the relay armiture in a gravity assist position. (Though, I didn't know that before- hand and had played around with the tabs to get it to pop open when mounted in the horizontal position).
Much thanks to all. Those diagrams and instructions *really* helped out.

[Anonymous]

I would like to buy a couple of lionel whistle units. Where would I find them and how difficult is it to i nstall? I am new to the hobby and new some good advice

[lionelsoni]

All that I have came from junk tenders I bought at train shows.