I need some help hooking up an old 154 flasher I found. I have two insulated short sections of track with a regular track in the middle. I also have a fixed voltage option. The lionel picture on the site is lousy. Anyone know how to connect this in simple terms with insulated tracks?
Thanks
Tom
Tom,
Connect a wire from the center rail of the track to the middle binding post on the 154. Connect a wire from one insulated rail to one of the outer posts, and connect a wire from the remaining insulated rail to the remaining binding post.
Jim
Tom,
if jim’s doesn’t fit your bill, do a search of this forum as we had a discussion a little while back.
Dennis
There is a lot of info on using an isolated outside rail and trackside accessories on www.Three-Rail.com
Sorry to bug you guys again, but I am not having luck with the 154. this is exactly what I have. I made two insulated track sections about 2" long. I soldered 1 wire to each insulated rail, connected to the two outside posts. i soldered a wire to the middle rail and connected it to the middle post. The lights do not blink. I dont have a 154 contactor. I tried to hook up my dads old marx flasher and it does the same. I tested both, the lights work fine. What am I doing wrong-please help
Thanks
Tom
I have a similar issue with this, in that my lights both stay on constantly, when the train is going through that section of track, but it’s because I’m using FasTrack and only two wires. I didn’t see any way a 154 could be used with FasTrack and had resigned myself to living with it not flashing. If anybody knows different or can point me to a link that explains how it could be done I’d be very happy and grateful.
northernpikefish,
The 154 has never been easy to hook up electro-mechanically such that it operates realistically. Here’s a possible electronic solution. ( I have no personal experience with it:.)
Here is an old topic on the same subject, with a number of solutions:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6006
Wolverine - great link - thanks
The current (May) issue of CTT has the information you want. The short insulated sections are connected together, without a section of regular track in between the two. Looking at the front of the 154 (terminals on the left), the rear terminal is connected to one of the insulated rails, the center terminal is connected to the other insulated rail, and the front terminal is connected to the center rail (or to the hot terminal of an accessory transformer).
pbjwilson,
Thanks for the kind words. They are especially gratifying because they seem very rare around these parts lately.
wolverine49
On my 154, the terms are on the right, when looking at the front of the signal. Do the wiring in reverse? It is a fundamensions, probably about 1985
Thanks
Tom
Tom, you’ve got a 2154, cataloged from 1970-87. It’s wired the same as the 154 and, yes, its terminals are on the right. It turns out the drawing I referenced in the CTT Q&A column is backwards, and I didn’t catch that.[:I]
Starting over, with the terminals on the RIGHT (!):
Rear terminal (#1) to the center rail or accessory power
Center terminal (#2) to the insulated rail of one of the track sections
Front terminal (#3) to the insulated rail of the other track section.
Your 2154 does have numbered terminals, yes? The 154 did; the Lionel highway flasher I have uses a circuit board and has numbered terminals 1 & 2, but not 3.
It is easy to identify the functions of the terminals of a simple 3-terminal crossing gate (or red-green signal, for that matter). Just apply the operating voltage successively to all three combinations of two terminals. When you find the pair that lights both lights, the one that is unconnected is the common, which goes to the fixed accessory voltage (or the center rail, if you prefer). The other two are the individual connections to the two lamps. With the signal common at the accessory voltage, grounding each of the other terminals will light the individual lamp that it is associated with.
I use Dallee boards to flash my old crossing signals. I also rewired my American Flyer signals to flash. All my trackside accesories are powerd by relay contacts with coils activated by insulated rails and powered by a seperate transformer.
Dale Hz