Powering an aristo-craft center cab motor block

[Anonymous]

Vsmith,
Thanks for the info, I would never have figured it out. I'd be too afraid to mess up an item that would take me months to replace. I just got my ohm meter working again and figured out which wires are which (blue and green go to the motor and black and red come from the track). I figured it would be the other way around. Anyways, thanks again for the advice.
Scott
P.S. I can't find the appropriate connector at the radio shack web site. What exactly did you use?

[vsmith]

You have to connect one pair of wires to the other for the motor block to work. Its designed to be plugged into an existing powerplug thats standard on aristo loco chassis. One wire is the power supply and the other in the return wire. Just as both rails carry current, their are two wires to carry current in the powerblock, I beleive red/black and blue/green. When plugged in it carries power from one rail thru the block up to all the circuitry in the chassis then back thru the block to the opposite rail to complete the circuit.

I used two of these to power a scratched loco, I used trial and error to try connecting the wires on one block and using my test track. once I had the circuit , red to green/black to blue or something like that, its been a long time since doing this, I was able to connect the wires on the second truck and then use jumper wires to connect the two truck together. If you using one truck the above should help, I built a tram using one of these trucks to power it, for a two truck engine, just keep the trucks in the same orientaion, same color wires on one side and the connecting wiring will allow for 8 wheel pick up and a great running engine. Be carefull if you are going to be cutting off the plugs, there isnt much spare wiring there. Go to Radio Shack and pick up a set of matching plugs and add your own wiring bridge. Good Luck

[Anonymous]

I am scratch building a solar locomotive (in reality it is track powered) and I am using an aristocraft center cab motor block to power it. The motor block comes with two sets of two wires coming out of it. one set is red and black and one set is blue and green. I figure that one takes power to the motor and i don't know what the other is for.
Does anyone know which set powers the motor and what the other set is?