I recently purchased an O gauge American Flyer collection. There was a 3-4" contactor that fit between the center and outside rail. It has two spring clips on the bottom to connect wires. Does anyone know who to connect a pre war American Flyer whistle billboard with it?
Welcome to the board!
The connector to the track for wires is called a lockon. The variable voltage output of your transformer gets connected to that. It is best to connect accessories to the auxiliary, or accessory terminals on your transformer, to get steady power, and not to the variable voltage track terminals. For your whistling billboard, if it has a switch to activate it, you would connect one terminal of the transformer to one terminal on the switch, the other switch terminal would go to one terminal on the billboard, and the second terminal on the billboard would go back to the transformer.
Larry
He said that it is a contactor, not a lockon, which would be nowhere as big as 4 inches. If it is a contactor, that is, something that closes a contact when the train passes over it, you would wire it in series with the billboard. If I remember correctly, the billboard has three terminals, one a common and the other two for the whistle motor and for the light. (We're moving and I don't have ready access to a billboard or documentation. Anyone who does, please correct me.) You can connect the common to one of the transformer terminals and the light terminal to the other transformer terminal. Connect the billboard's motor terminal to one of the contactor's terminals and the other contactor's terminal to the other transformer terminal, along with the wire for the light.
Bob Nelson
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