Substitutes for Lionel E-Unit

[cottonx56]

if oxide maybe at electrics store sell a jell or i not do it but a liquid to put on there contacts when one is aluminum and the other is copper to stop the oxide from happening dint know but a good ace hardware or Lowe's electric section sales man would know if not head over to contractor table they talk to you you just wont get the price chop

[cwburfle]

sir james I

I am not sure who made them I was working at P & D at the time and I got them with a parts order. We also  found that they had used them in production engines and a lot of them came back broken. Lionel outsourced a lot of work to locals so there is no telling who actually made them.

 Thank you for the reply!
If I understand your response correctly, they came from Lionel.

I know Lionel did subcontract at least some parts, possibly these drums.

[sir james I]

1-800-356-3910 Bachmann service department. or www.bachmanntrains.com

reverse board # 00247

Or try mapajunction he is a Williams dealer.

[jjm]

I found the Dallee units, but I can't seem to find the units on the Williams site.  Does anyone have a direct link or a better name to search on?

[sir james I]

I am not sure who made them I was working at P & D at the time and I got them with a parts order. We also  found that they had used them in production engines and a lot of them came back broken. Lionel outsourced a lot of work to locals so there is no telling who actually made them.

[cwburfle]

sir james I

Dallee Electronics in Pa. has a four amp E unit. The clear drums were a bad bunch we quit selling them as the spindles on the end would break off.

Do you know who made the clear drums?
I've run across a few, but not many.

[sir james I]

Dallee Electronics in Pa. has a four amp E unit. The clear drums were a bad bunch we quit selling them as the spindles on the end would break off.

[alank]

While I was reading all the posts here, I was thinking the only e-unit drums I have ever replaced are the ones where an end has sheared off.   And if I have to say, I have some locomotives that have seen one heck of a lot of running, and still have their original e-unit.   I don't do anything to clean or otherwise while they are working.

[lionelsoni]

I don't recall ever having to replace an e-unit drum.  When they're dirty, I clean them with an eraser.  When the teeth develop notches, I shave them flat.  I once found a drum with the shaft sheared off on one end.  I noticed that a plastic O27 track pin was the same diameter, drilled a hole into the drum, and forced a piece of the track pin in.  It's still working.  I don't even have a spare drum on hand.

[Fordiesel69]

Never relays or reset banks, but all pinball machine steppers and match cards should be greased with proper lubricant.  Bally used to sell their own grease in a tube but it was not that great.  Yearly wipedowns and relubing with a thin oil seems to keep mine running great.  6v portions of the stepper gets kind of flaky when the grease become dirty, so I opt to just use thin silicone lube gel.  The e-units pass too much current and seem to get hot enough that I feel lube is not appropriate.  I may be wrong though.

[cwburfle]

bfskinner

Very interesting, CW. I had not heard that one. But by "the contacts will oxidize and need cleaning again" did you mean after as little as two hours of operation? What course of action do you recommend that  the member take next?

I don't think brass will oxidize that quickly.
I haven't thought about the problem, other than to find people who have the good drums.
I have enough on hand to meet my needs.

[cwburfle]

Fordiesel69

With pinball machine electromechanical steppers, dielectric grease or light silicone lube gel works great, only because there is lots of tension.  On these little e-units, tension is an understatement.  I guess no oil and every year before running it, a quick wipe with some ultra fine 2000 grit paper will do the trick.

I've worked on a few of the later electromechanical pinball machines. Mostly Williams and Gottlieb. I don't recall any of the contacts being greased.

[Fordiesel69]

With pinball machine electromechanical steppers, dielectric grease or light silicone lube gel works great, only because there is lots of tension.  On these little e-units, tension is an understatement.  I guess no oil and every year before running it, a quick wipe with some ultra fine 2000 grit paper will do the trick.

[bfskinner]

Very interesting, CW. I had not heard that one. But by "the contacts will oxidize and need cleaning again" did you mean after as little as two hours of operation? What course of action do you recommend that  the member take next?

[cwburfle]

The reproduction drums that were made by Town and Country hobbies had copper contact rings, and work fairly well.  Town and Country stopped making the drums several years ago. They all seem to be cast in while plastic, with copper rings. The later batches were starting to show signs of tooling wear.
It was pointed out to me that the lastest batch od drums, which may have actually come from Lionel, have brass contact rings. The person who pointed this out predected that they would be nothing but trouble. He is a major parts dealer.

I have worked on a fair number of  trains with melted drums. In every case, the e-unit assembly was badly in need of cleaning.  (too many folks beleive that if it moves, it gets oiled, and if a little is good, a lot is better)
These new drums may need to be burnished before installation. Here's the trouble: over time, the contacts will oxidize and need cleaning again. (Which is exactly what my friend predicted)

[Fordiesel69]

Yes it is wired correctly according to the diagram.  Mine was never altered by any servicers other than a cleaning + lube back in 1987.    I only recently re-flowed all the solder and all the joints looked factory.  My original drum is working fine.

 The repro drum got too hot, some resin from the plastic came out and coated the traces, thus increasing the resistance and making it melt even more. 

[lionelsoni]

I agree.  I've never seen a drum fail electrically.  Is your locomotive wired correctly according to the Lionel schematic diagram? http://pictures.olsenstoy.com/cd/locos/loc2333a.pdf  Sometimes locomotives get rewired with the armature and field in parallel rather than in series, which greatly increases the current.

[bfskinner]

Fordiesel69

So where would I get a 6 amp electronic I unit?  

Williams by Bachmann advertises a 6 amp electronic e-unit but I don't know whether it would work with with your locomotive. Dallee has various models, and The Scaled Tin Rail (associate of QS Industries) does too. I have never bought a six amp, having gotten very good service from four amp versions.

I just installed a new drum in mine and it burned up in less that an hour.  I cleaned my old one and resintalled it and ran it 2 hrs with no problem.  Getting a quialty repro drum today may be hard.  I would rather replace the whole unit with something more robust.

Sorry to hear that, but in my opinion something is seriously wrong somewhere. That simply shouldn't have happened.

[Fordiesel69]

So where would I get a 6 amp electronic I unit?

 

I just installed a new drum in mine and it burned up in less that an hour.  I cleaned my old one and resintalled it and ran it 2 hrs with no problem.  Getting a quialty repro drum today may be hard.  I would rather replace the whole unit with something more robust.

[bfskinner]

I don't have much experience with modern replacement electrio-mechanical e-units. However, many of the originals, from post-war Lionel dual-motor F-3 locomotives, for example, are still going strong today. I have no information that suggests that the replacements are any less rugged. None of the few new ones that I have used has failed -- so far. In a phrase, I'm not sure I agree with your premise.

Have you considered replacing yours with electronic e-units? The six-amp units are pretty rugged and there are no moving parts to wear out. The four-amp units may not be quite as rugged; but, almost by definition, the electronic ones either work or they don't, and are marginally vulnerable to voltage spikes along with all the other "solid-state" components.

Of course, it you don't mind it your locomotive has no neutral or reverse, you can always wire the power straight in from the roller pickup to the motors.... Can't get much more rugged than that.

What you are suggesting would not be at all difficult in a stationary motor. The trick is to do it in inside a locomotive moving aroung a track, within the limited space available inside the loco itself.

.

[Fordiesel69]

Has anyone thought of a way to make a relay to do the same as an e-unit, or some other design?  I feel the e- units are underbuilt for dual motor setups.  The fingers are too thin and the drums don;t seem to last very long.