I was given a 1946 1405W Lionel Train Set that was only used a few times. I have cleaned and lubricated cars, cleaned the tracks and set it up. The 1666 locomotive ran great! The whistle tender is in great shape, but will not blow when the whistle button on transformer is pressed. I disassembled, inspected, lubricated and cleaned. Initially the turbine for the whistle was stiff but lubrication freed it up. Still no respose. I placed on track wihout cover and lifted the contact below the relay and Eureka, it not only worked, but sounded great. Given that it works when the contact is lifted, is it possibly the button on the transformer that is not working? I disassemble the transformer and inspected the wiring and it appears intact. Could it be something else?
There are three “steps” or positions in the whistle control - run(out) lift/energize(half way down) and hold(all the way down), and the train should react a little different(speed/bulb brightness) at each step - is it doing this?
When I depress the whistle button, the locomotive does act differently and the headlight dims. the whistle button is not a button, but more of a slide type of button that goes into the transformer at the top to one side. It is the lionel type 1402 75 watt transformer.
The Lionel specification is that the relay should operate at 1.1 volts DC. So, before you tear into the transformer, stick a piece of paper between the relay contacts and try to operate the relay with only a 1.5-volt dry cell powering the tender. The whistle of course will not blow; but, if the relay armature operates, the tender is not the problem and the transformer may be the culprit.
In addition, are you trying the whistle tender by itself, or while it is running with the train?
I ask because often the transformer won’t put out enough DC offset without a proper load. Sometimes even the locomotive and tender by themselves won’t be a big enough load. In those cases, making the train longer to make the engine work harder, or putting a few light bulbs in parallel with the tracks fixes the problem (such as illuminated cars).
I actually had only the engine and tender and set-up the track in a small oval for testing. I was also just testing the tender on the one piece of powered up track. I’ll try with the other cars and see what happens. My fear was that the there might be a problem with the armiture, but we’ll see.
I just set things up and noticed that when I depress the whislte button, the headlight on the engine gets brighter and the train moves faster, but no response from the tender.
As you press the button, there is a voltage boost. So yes, the headlight will get brighter. Your locomotive and tender may not draw enough to make the whistle relay operate. Try putting all the cars on as well.
If the whistle still doesn’t work, then follow the other tips given to test the relay itsekf.
Put the tender by itself on the track, with the shell off so that you can see the whistle relay and with a bit of paper between the contacts so that, if the relay operates, it cannot actually connect the whistle motor to the 1.5-volt DC track voltage. Instead of a transformer, connect the dry cell to the track as if you were going to power a train with it. Polarity doesn’t matter. If the relay is okay, the armature should lift, as if to close the contacts, when you connect the cell to the track.
Thanks, I will attempt that. Any idea where I can get a 1.5 volt battery? I did try some of the other suggestions posted. I added all cars ran the whole train around the track, no affect on the whistle. It seems the car is getting power as physically raising the armiture gets it to work. The armiture does not move at all while using the transformer, so I will try the battery approach. In trying to understand how the armiture works, is the round thing above it an electromagnet? Does energizing it create magnatism which pulls the armiture up? If so, could that be the problem?
A regular “D” cell flashlight battery from any store will work fine.
A couple of other things:
Adding additional cars that don’t have lights or something else that draws current may (or may not) help your test. If you have, say, a searchlight car adding that would help draw more current for this type of test.
There are two differrent things called “armatures” in play here: one that is part of the relay (which, as you suspected, is indeed pulled up by an electromagnet in the relay when DC power is applied - thus closing the switch in the relay and allowing AC current to flow to the whistle motor), and a second which is part of the whistle motor and spins when AC power is allowed to flow to it via the relay. In this discussion, it’s important to know which armature is being referred to in order to make sense of things! [:D]
One thought as well: perhaps it is possible that everything is working fine, but you are not running your train with enough voltage to get an old whistle motor running. Be sure to have the track voltage up around 12-14V (which will then get boosted by your transformer, which you saw happen when the headlight got brighter) to ensure there’s enough voltage to make the motor spin.
Tried the battery test and no reaction from the armiture below the relay. Could it be the WSR-1 relay is bad? I confirmed the battery was good prior to test and even tried a different one.
My voltage meter is at my boat which is about 75 miles away. I could pick one up at Harbor Freight as they are cheap. Not a pro with multimeters though. To test, would I put a lead on the top and bottom where the wires are soldered above the contacts, or the black wire to the thin (non-insulated) bare one that come out of the wind and attaches on the opposite side of the relay to the outside? Sorry to sound like a novice…but I am.
It could be the relay coil itself, or the wiring between the coil and the track. If you have a pair of clip leads, you can try to connect the dry cell directly to the coil, bypassing any tender wiring.
I also inspected the wiring between the track and coil and it is intact and appears the insulation is not compromised along the run. When I lift the relay armiture to make contact, the whistle blows good and strong. The armiture will not move on it’s own.