Anyone know how the 1656 tender (6403B) tender is supposed to be wired? I just got one and the bell doesn't work. I can see there is no wire attached to the hot side of the solenoid coil, and also there are no other unaccounted for wires inside the tender. It looks to me that if I just applied a wire from the pickup to the coil it would energize but only ' ding' once and not reset until power went off. Is that how it's supposed to work?
Inside the tender you should see what appears to be a printed circuit board with a light bulb screwed into it. The roller pickup is connected to one of the terminals on that board and that is connected to a bi-metallic strip which is attached underneath the board. There should also be wires from that board to the coil, and there should also be two wires with plugs on the end that connect to the locomotive. One is for the coil coupler and I'm not sure what the other one is for.
The bell works by track current heating the bi-metallic strip. When first powered up the bell will ding. After the metal strip heats up, it bends and breaks the contact. After it cools off a bit, it makes contact again and dings the bell again. This is repeated over and over until you either power down or move the lever on the swich to the off position.
Unforunately, I don't have a wiring diagram and it is kind of hard to explain all of the wiring in writing.
Carl
Thanks Carl-- it's perfectly clear now... the bimetallic strip is missing! Got a feeling this will be hard to find...
I did some checking and that thermostatic strip is very hard to find. I was able to locate one, though.
You can order it from justtrains.com. The Lionel part no. is 83-10 and the price is: $27.50. The price seems kind of high but nobody else has one. They also rewind the coil on defective ones for a lower price but it sounds like yours is completely missing. I believe that part is riveted in so installing one might be kind of tricky since something may have been broken when the old one was removed.
Goodl Luck!
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