Hi all I have done a good deal of googling on this and not yet found the answer so here goes. I live in the UK and have an original Polar Express set. This cane from the ‘offical’ importer and has as such a less than perfect conversion to uk 240v consisting of a transformer and a rail king controller. Whilst away last week my wife informs me ‘something went bang’ our two year has been rather errm enthusiastic with the whistle and I suspect this and the less than perfect conversion has probably caused the controller to expire I have long hankered after improving the set with trainsounds etc and I know the set up required to do this properly step down to 12v dc then a US spec inverter to convert 12v dc back up to US voltage and 60hz. Then j came across the Lionchief sets for not a lot more than what i need to spend on transformers inverters new controller i can get a Lionchief set. As well as extra track extra cars and sound there is one distinctcadvantage if what I read is correct lionchief simple needs 18v dc fed to the track. So I just need a suitable UK spec 18v transformer wbich is a fairly inexpensive easy piece of kit to source, with none of the comllexities and issues of 50hz v 60hx etc ro deal with. Is it this simple or am I missing something? Just seems win win to me.
From what I read from Lionel on the Internet about Lionchief, it runs on AC or DC. Because of this, I suspect that the locomotive doesn’t care what the frequency is. If so, you wouldn’t need a DC supply, but just 18 volts of 50-hertz AC.
Perhaps someone running one on AC in the 50-hertz world can confirm this.
My understanding with the ac/dc issue was either/or I just wanted to confirm that as some sources quote 18v ac or 18v dc I guess a lot of that comes from people discussing compatibility with conventional Lionel equipment.
There is Lion Chief and Lion Chief +. Both will run with their dedicated remotes on ac or dc. LC+ can also be run conventionally with a transformer without the remote.
My point was that the fact that it will run on either AC or DC implies that it does not care whether your AC frequency is 50 or 60 hertz. A transformer taking in 230 volts and putting out 18 volts at 50 hertz is a simpler device than a power supply putting out 18 volts DC, whatever its input frequency or voltage.
Fortuneatly one of the pieces of kit from my original set up (that works) is a 240 to 18v ac transformer, so at worst I just need a new bullet plug.