I guess that would mean to use a thick oil instead of a light machine oil. (Maybe I wasn't so far off suggesting Peanut butter!!!... sorry, I keep remembering a Dennis the Menace comic where he is down on the ground in Mr. Wilson's driveway with his wagon upside-down and the wheels off. He also has a jar of something in front of him and his hands are covered with some sort of glop... he is looking up at Mr. Wilson and says, "I always grease my wheels with Peanut butter.")
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
After half an hour Google search for AAR SM-07, getting passed what I take to be German Soccor League scores, I found a short and not so informative article by Dupont that refered to it as refined Palm Oil, Aircraft/Automotive grade lubricant. A Dupont lube search gave no other information. My experience with Palm Oil is limited to just knowing it is very stickey.
Tom Trigg
I don't want to scare you off, but I feel like I should offer some advice/warning about playing with electricity.
There are two properties of electricity that you should have some understanding of in order to play safe.
One is called Voltage... that is how much push there is behind the electricity to make it go. The other is Amperage... that is how much electricity there is flowing. High values of either of these can be dangerous. They are also interrelated: namely, the higher the Voltage, the more Amperage there can be.
Voltage is often abbreviated to Volts or "V", and Amperage is abbreviated to Amps or "A" and often referred to as "Current".
If you have 8 "D-cell" flashlight batteries in a row, they will put out 12 Volts just like a car battery, but being just little "D-cells" they cannot produce much current for the 12 Volts to push. They just don't have the capability to produce massive amounts of electricity, maybe 2 or 3 Amps. And what little they can produce just won't last long if you keep the current flowing... the chemical process inside the battery just can't make it very fast.
However, a car battery is capable of producing up to 600 Amps (or more) of electricity and sustaining that amount for a long time. (You may have seen advertising about "Cold Cranking Amps"... that is what they are talking about... it takes a lot of power to start a car... most to cause the starter motor to rotate and have some left over the produce a hot spark in the cylinders). Instantaneous unrestricted current flow can be thousands of Amps!
If you connect 8 flashlight batteries together and then stick a screwdriver across the end terminals (i.e.: "short" them together), you will get a spark and the screwdriver shaft "might" get warm, but the batteries will be depleted pretty quickly and nothing really bad will happen (other than ruining 8 batteries).
However, if you stick a screwdriver shaft across a car battery's terminals, you won't get just a spark, you will probably get a blinding flash and instead of the shaft getting warm, it will probably vaporize and splatter molten metal all over the place.
And you don't have to be stabbing the screwdriver directly across the terminals of the battery itself. It is relatively the same thing to connect two long wires to the terminals and short the other ends together.
So... when you are working on your bell or lights, disconnect at least one wire from the battery before you go sticking a screwdriver into things. (And arrange that disconnected wire such that it cannot accidently come in contact with the terminal it was disconnected from.)
You can safely play with these things if you have some respect for what it can do if you are not careful.
There are other things that can be used instead of a car battery and the danger level is dependent on how much current it is capable of producing all at once. In reality, all you need is 12 Volts and less than 1 Amp to operate the bell. The amount of current to operate the lights will depend on how many lights and what power the flasher circuit requires... I would hazard a guess that the lights would require less than 4 Amps... so you do not need a big car battery to operate them. A small (cheap) battery charger would suffice. And if you change the lights from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, the current requirement will drop to less than an Amp for the light set too.
Do you have a “multi-meter” of some sort? It would be easier to test the wiring of the lights if you do.
The paper inside the device says to use AAR SM-07 to oil it... don't that just tell you everything you need to know??? At least you can be fairly certain to not use peanut butter or mayonaise, but I guess it could be possible that SM-07 means one of those.
Seriously, I don't know. I would look at where the oil goes once introduced into the hole. Does it look like a grease? Or is it totally dry? I would guess that a light machine oil (sewing machine oil, 3-in-1 SAE 10, or maybe 3-in-1 SAE 20) would work... Sort of depends on what happens to the oil... does it just drip onto stuff or is there a container that gets filled and it keeps a wick wet or dribbles into a bearing? Probably don't want to just dump lots of oil all over the place, but I can see where it would be good to put a drop or two on pivot points. I don't see the location in any of the photos but the diagram sort of indicates to me that you would just put a couple of drops of "oil" in the hole and call it good for a year or three. I doubt if you will be ringing it as often as it did when it was installed at a grade crossing and I doubt if the RR oiled it very often... probably only if the system had broken and somebody thought of it while up a ladder looking at things.
I am cogitatin' on what to tell you to try with the lights. I have a set that I wired up to flash with an automotive turn signal flasher and a SPDT relay (I'll explain that later). I have also made 1/2 scale crossing lights (using LEDs) and have a couple of methods of making them flash nicely. The hardest part with a real set is figuring out where the wires go and which ones you want to use. I'll try to explain how to do that later. It ain't hard, just takes an awful lot of words to convey the simple process.
There is an oil hole for lubrication (top left 32 in the digram). Any idea what type of oil one would use?
The Bell...
The schematic shows that you need only two wires from your power source to the device. The "+" at the top of the variable resistor is the left most terminal of the three binding posts on the lower left of the device (per the photos). The "-" connection at the bottom of the schematic is the middle binding post of the three. (The third post is just a terminal to connect wires from the two coils together, you make no connection to it.)
I am assuming the blue wire and the loose black wire in the photo are from the outside of the unit and are probably the wires that brought power into the unit. Assuming that is true, then the black wire should be connected to the left most binding post and power would be connected to them outside the unit. (I have no idea what the yellow, red or orange wires are for.)
Assuming you use a 12V battery (or a car battery charger) to power it, connect the "+" battery terminal (red on a car battery) to the black wire (connected to the left most binding post) and the "-" battery terminal (black on a car battery) to the blue wire (connected to the middle binding post) and the bell should start ringing.
To adjust the rate of the bell ringing, lightly loosen the screw on the band wrapped around middle of the variable resistor (that brown ceramic tubular component at the extreme left of the device just above the left binding post)... probably want to do this with the battery disconnected and the bell not ringing... save your ears and lessen the possibility of a short circuit while you are poking around with a screwdriver. "I THINK" that moving the band up will decrease the ringing rate and down will increase the rate. Move it a wee bit, make sure the right side of the band is in good contact with the metal wires exposed on that side of the resistor and tighten the screw again to hold it in place. Then apply power again and check for about 200 rings per minute and a "pleasing tone" from the bell (your aesthetic feelings apply). You probably don't want to sit and count rings for a whole minute (What? I can't hear you anymore! WHAT?!?!)... so 200/60 is a wee bit over 3 per second, or 33.33 per 10 seconds... a good guess is fine here (again, your aesthetics apply)
Attached here are the railroad crossing sign with posts:
Thanks for the treplies and leads. Very appreciated. as requested here are some pics of the diagram and posts for this Model 333:
DIAGRAM: I dont really know how to read an electric diagram without guessing ;^)
POSTS:
Is there a model number? or other identifing marks? Do a Google search for wiring diagrams for that make model.
Yeah, post a good picture of the diagram and a close up of the terminals.
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
Thanks for the reply! I saw all the YouTube videos but they are all just showing off there toys not explanatory on how they did it. Surprisingly little info, esp. for the 4 way railroad crossing lights.
I saw the 12 v on one of the videos. Cameta just quickly panned past a car battery charger they were using.
All the parts in the bell are easy and move perfectly. There is also a diagram, I just don't know how to read one well enough to be sure. Maybe I will post that. There are three posts and don't want to choose the wrong one. Screwed up another antique guessing now gun shy
Lots of stuff on Youtube, and they usually work on 12v... did you open it up and see if stuff still moves inside, and usually there is a circuit diagram on the door/cover
I just acquired a 4 light Safetran crossing light and Cullen bell. No idea what Im doing and looking for help powering these and getting them working. I realize this is model train forum but suspect you good people love all things railroad! And having trouble finding any other forums out there for this topic. Any leads or point me in the right direction would be appreciated!
My first task is to power them (12v ?) just to see if they work. No idea where to start.
Respectfully
Todd
Cincinnati
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