Your welcome Bob, and deserve the credit...It solves a problem I have known a long time. The O22 removes the switch coil from the overheat situation by internal switches built into the switch machine. Your electrical use of capacative discharge handles the situation by not allowing the capacitor to charge while a car or wheel set is on the activation rails.. I also like some of your other explanations of things...it makes me feel young and back in college listening to some professor talk about I**r losses or other things.
JTrains Is there any historical information available on the people who designed some of these early products?
It's fun to take a stroll through Google Patent Searches:
Rob
"So simple, but so beautiful..." Wow! Thank you!
Bob Nelson
Getting back into trains as an adult, I'm appreciating more and more how well-designed and built most of Lionel's products were. Is there any historical information available on the people who designed some of these early products?
Jtrains.
I don't know all what publications/videos are out there, but back in the early 80s I received a copy of Ron Hollander's book All Aboard. It was shortly after the copyright date of 1981 that I was in a new assignment that would have me learning CADAM..Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing... In my efforts to understand and use CAD as a drafting tool, away from my assignments I would try to draft/draw things I knew. I thought in terms of Lionel objects, and would try to draw them, and it let me expand my knowledge of the functions built into the CAD system.
At the same time you are reading about Joshua Lionel Cowen and his Lionel Train Company. Working for Company XYZ that is also well known, and we had our figures that would inspire us I used to think I could probably have worked for Lionel, after all here we are doing electrical/mechancial design, have our manuafacturing lines, etc. and there are a lot of parallels.
Ron Hollander's book talks about Mario Curuso and others, the invention of different components of the product line, shows snapshots into their coming about and Lionel Manufacture. You might want to get a copy of that. There are also many good videos, other books that show the product and product line.
Like I said in my post yesterday. I have had 022 switches for a while, but never really stopped to look at them until I started cleaning and troubleshooting on them yesterday. I was then that I studied them and really got an apprication for the art of their design, and as someone mentioned the design is over 70 years old.
One of the reasons I read this forum is for apprecaition. Bob Nelson's capacative discharge for 1122 use. So simple, but so beautiful...it inspires me...
In the late 70s I bought a new Chrysler, of which after some time one of the instruments failed. After replacing the gauge myself, I then dissected the old gauge, only to realize that it was built much like the Lionel passenger station that stopped and started your train...They both used a bimetalic activated switch...
It is the art, and how others do it that helps inspire me..Somewhere along the way I was introduced to the trains, and for my mother it was a way to give me an interest and and for her when I was working on the trains she knew where I was and that I wasn't out and about getting into trouble. It just all grew together, and inspired me...
ADCX Rob alank So in working on these things today, you know Lionel did a nice job in designing those switches... And when you realize these were designed 80 years ago in the mid 1930s, it's even more impressive.
alank So in working on these things today, you know Lionel did a nice job in designing those switches...
And when you realize these were designed 80 years ago in the mid 1930s, it's even more impressive.
IT consultant by day, 3rd generation Lionel guy (raising a 3YO 4th generation Lionel Lil' Man) by night in the suburbs of the greatest city in the world - Chicago. Home of the ever-changing Illinois Concretus Ry.
alankSo in working on these things today, you know Lionel did a nice job in designing those switches...
I am going to piggyback off this thread as my discussion of today's activity has to do with Lionel postwar 022 swithces.
While I have had some Lionel 022 switches for some time now, over the years i have done only a little with O guage, and when it came to layouts I have used O27 switches thinking the profile was better. The past 10 years since we last relocated, our only layouts have been at Christmas, and at that time I used the O22/O42 switches I had aquired, doing nothing more than hooking them up and using them. This year I didn't even get them wired as after I set up the trains, I got not feeling good, and being able to run the trains under the Christmas tree was all I needed.
Today I was down in our family room and was going to put away the trains I had taken out for the holiday season. Along with those trains was a bag of O22 switches my son purchased at a train show in December.
On the day of the trainshow, my son and I traveled with two of my brothers for a brother's day out. I didn't have anything I was looking for and just planned on attending the train show, and being there for my one brother who was looking for both Lionel and American Flyer items. He would need my help. My other brother and I were just having fun, and my son was with us as he was on leave, and asked if he could go with us.
On arrival to the train show we all just went about looking at whatever we wanted. Shortly after getting there my son came and asked me to look at something for him. He came across a table where the seller was putting out a variety of trains, and on the table was a bag of O22 switches. My son showed them to me along with the card saying $5.00 a pair, as is. I saw that a couple of controllers needed wire, and my son mentioned using them for our Christmas layout...I said to him, if you want them, buy them, and what I can't fix, I will use for parts.
Anyhow, today they were on the table where I had placed our trains. I never did anything with them after we came home, and only opened the bag up to look at today. My son bought himself 3 pairs of O22 switches. I cleaned and serviced them today. Out of 6 switches I have 5 working, 4 controlers are working, and other than 2 fixed voltage plugs, 2 lanterns, 1 bulb, all the makings are there for 6 O22 switches, and with no rust. Funny thing there was 1 1122 switch lantern also in the bag. I think my son did pretty good, and if the paper stating price wasn't in the bag, I wouldn't believe it.
So in working on these things today, you know Lionel did a nice job in designing those switches. I guess maybe a weakness would be the melted lanterns, or missing lens, but I like how you can take off the bottoms and they are serviceable..All before we had CAD. I have always liked my 1122s, but wish I could get at the bottom as easy as the O22.
Anyhow just wanted to share the story. Switch 6 will take a little more time as it isn't responding to electricity yet, but I am just the guy to go after shorts or opens...and to my son, nice find, maybe I should have looked over that table a little more.
On the post war 022 switches there is a plug-in for constant voltage supply, while not always used it needs to be looked at. Take the cover off the solenoid and see if the contact clip is making contact to the center pin, use an alligator clip to hold the two in place and if it works after that then you know what the issue is. You might be able to use a small tie wrap to hold it in place when you have the cover back on.
Rob,
Thanks so much. But happy/embarrased to report that after inspecting the insulating pins I found that one was broken and not doing what it was designed to do. I so much appreciate your offered assistance, really do. You guys have been invaluable to me.....
We're going to need a lot more information, because "as they should be"/"as it should be" is very subjective.
What transformer(s) are you using?
What transformer binding posts are you using?
Is the switch on a layout or on the bench?
Does it work off track voltage(not fixed acc)?
I have a 022 Lionel Postwar switch that does not work. I have cleaned all contacts, ensured all wires and connections/solders are as they should be, insured all connections to the track and the side 'voltage' connection is as it should be. When I connect it ....nothing. Switch light does not come on and the controller does nothing. The controller works on other switches. What can I be missing/
Thanks in advance.
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