Bing 7101 operating voltage

[OhioZephyr]

I finished servicing my Bing engine. I use a ZW 275 watt transformer on my layout. I have two question:

Is the engine one of the higher voltage (greater than 24 volts) produced by Bing? At 20 volts it crawls across the track, and stalls easily.

If the above is correct, how can I run the engine on my current layout? I've seen discussions on linking an additioal transformer to boost the voltag, but that could cause more problems. 

Thanks

Jim

[pennytrains]

Here's a great page from a great resource:

http://www.tcawestern.org/bing.htm

It mentions that some were made to run on 12 volts and others at 18 volts depending on whether they were for 110 or 220 markets respectively.

[pennytrains]

PS: you can have a lot of fun exploring their index of manufacturers: http://www.tcawestern.org/manufacturers.htm

[mersenne6]

According to the Schiffmann Sammlerkatalog Band 5 the 7101 is an 18 volt steam locomotive - catalog number was 11/8101 - made 1930-32

[lionelsoni]

Here's a completely untested idea for a way to boost motor voltage at the locomotive:

Between the track voltage and the motor, insert a bridge rectifier.  This will put out an RMS voltage equal to the RMS track voltage.  Then connect across this rectified track voltage an (electrolytic) capacitor.  If the capacitor is very small, it will have no effect on the motor voltage.  But, if the capacitor is very large, it will charge to the peak of the track voltage, that is, 140 percent of the RMS track voltage.

I suggest starting with something like 10 millifarads (10000 microfarads) and then adjusting the capacitance experimentally up or down from there to get the desired performance.