DC or AC electrical question.

[c50truck]

Quick question.
Do the accessories of train sets care weather the voltage is DC or A? I have several heavy duty step down transformers from old step offices, (phone office), of Western Electric. They convert to 12v Dc and 24v DC and 48v DC. Seems the street lights and other extras could be set up to run off of these heavy duty transformers quite easily. If I understand correctly these accessories originally were made to run off of 14v AC.
I'm working with mostly pre war Marx items, some post war. Am I on the right track? (Pun intended).
Any help would be appreciated. I know enough to be dangerous when it comes to electricity.

[wrmcclellan]

Your various lighting accessories will work fine off the DC transformers. You will get about the same lamp brightness from 14 vac as you will with 14 vdc.

Some accesories will convert to DC (depends on the type of motor in them), and some will not as they use a vibrotor (depends on 60 hz to drive a rubber finger washer). Electromagnets will typically work fine.

BTW - you can find lots of AC wall transformers from various appliances such as printers and cordless phone equipment to get AC voltages cheap. My local electronics surplus store sell these things for just a few dollars and they will source anywhere from 300 milliamps to a couple of amps depending on the model.

I am not familiar with Marx accessories (I do not have any - but I do have PW Marx trains), but if you have a specific model, post it and see what suggestions others might be able to make.

Good luck,
Roy

[c50truck]

wrmcclellan
Thanks, I never Thought of the AC adapters.

[fwright]

I would be very cautious using the 48 volt units around a model railroad. Starting to get a little dangerous with a high current power supply. You can certainly feel the tingle putting your fingers across the terminals of 48 volts. Secondly, it's too easy to blow out components through a wiring mistake. Very little of the postwar/modern stuff likes to see more than 18 volts, and a 16 volt maximum is better. Modern electronics are too expensive to risk a voltage spike of that magnitude.

The 24 volt could be used successfully for lights, although you would generally have to put 2 bulbs in series so that no one bulb gets the full 24 volts.

Accessories that don't need AC and most light bulbs will be very happy on 12 volts DC.

yours in powering
Fred Wright

[dsmith]

How about using DC to control the engine? I have a variable 12 volt power supply and I noticed that my AC Lionel 205 engine runs smoother on DC than it does on AC. Am I hurting the engine or the directional solenoid by using DC?
I noticed that using DC on my crossing gate results in no hum when the gate lowers.

[Anonymous]

"Am I hurting the engine or the directional solenoid by using DC? "

Original Lionel equipment was designed to be used on AC or DC as a standard for home delivery of electricity wasn't standardized. Some folks were using wet cell batteries to power the train sets. Original solenoids were made of softer iron alloys that were slow to take on a permanent magnet field. Three caveats about use of DC.

a) lock the reverse unit
b) disconnect any whistle or bell triggers in tenders/locomotives
c) NEVER put a modern elecronic loco on those track. They were not designed for use with DC current (even the ones with DC can motors inside).

[lionelsoni]

I run all my locomotives, prewar, postwar, and modern, on DC and with e-units enabled, with no problem. The modern ones are Railkings, two with the electronics replaced (Big Boy 30-1129-1 and GTEL 30-2009-1), but three others (two P40s 30-2160-0, one P32 30-2003) using the MTH rectifiers, reversing electronics, and horns.

[brianel027]

And I also run my trains on DC current be they postwar or modern. I have been slowly stripping the circuit board reverse units out of my DC can motored truck mounted engines.

I'm not the only one who has notice these dual motored DC truck mounted types of locos tend to be very noisey especially on tight 027 curves. No doubt some of this is due to just 2 differing motors are not going to run at the same exact speed. Some of this is also due to the traction tire arrangement: having the traction tires on the opposite wheel sides of the same axle is a no-no.

But in addtion I have found that running these can motored locos minus circuit boards, they run noticable smoother and more quietly. Speed is also more consistant.

I use off board sound, so there is no obother there. And I did have to adjust voltage levels of on-track lights to lower voltage bulbs but that was no bother either.

I have no problems with mechanical e-units nor any problems with any of the factory made operating cars I have. My own operating cars were designed and built by me with DC operation in mind.