I started paint work on a 2nd Lionel 4-4-2. Now its time to do the wiring and other mods.
WC 3547 4-4-2 has on/off switches for smoke unit and reverse unit, has whistle in tender with separate pickup. C&O 8633 4-4-2 I don’t think has switches for reverse unit or smoke unit. It looks like 8633 doesn’t have a whistle. I’d like to set it up with connectors to run between the engines but also so I can reconnect the 8633 back to its reverse unit and run it by itself. I still want the smoke unit on the 8633 to run. Could that draw too much juice through one reverse unit?
You might be asking too much of one reverse unit or need a higher capacity reverse unit.
Don’t know what to use for a connecter plug but I have used a two wire connecter plug from a remote control car(1/32 scale) on my diesel engines for a sound board hook-up in an unpowerred B unit.
I use to run three single motored [Pullmor] U Boats with one E Unit with no problem. Today’s units [electronic], I do not know. I have run them MU’d without a connector. Not as finniky as old E Units. It they do get crossed, shut down power and wait, all go to forward.
“While E-Units usually control but one motor, it is possible, to control as many as four motors simultaneously by connecting them to a single E-Unit in parallel.”
I have started to relocate the switches on them to the top of the tenders. The 8633 has one switch only for the reverse unit. I’m thinking of adding a switch for the smoke unit on it. 3547 has a whistle in the tender and its own stand alone circuitry. 8633 has no whistle. I wonder if these same circuit boards are installed on GP7-9-20s with dual motors? I have 2 plans I’m thinking of:
With all the switches relocated to the rear/top of the tenders, I’m thinking of mounting a DPDT switch between the reverse unit and the drive motor. That way I can lock the engine in one direction and if its opposite of the direction I want to go I just flip the switch.
Wiring smoke units directly to track power but with on/off switches basically having their own circuit. The bedroom this layout is in is about 11x13 and I sometimes get a headache from the smoke. Then with a tether wire, wire both engines drive motors from one reverse unit in paralell. This way I can have F-N-R without leaving the transformer.
I’m getting the feeling that both of these locomotives have DC motors. You can wire such motors either in parallel or in series. If you wire them in parallel, you should verify that they run at close to the same speed before coupling them. Otherwise, you risk damaging the motors. If you wire them in series, there is no problem with matching the speed. And the current draw from the reversing unit is no more than with one motor. However, the pair will run slower at the same track voltage; so, if you want to go fast, you might run out of transformer voltage.
My solution to the connector problem is to put individual connector pins onto black wires. With two wires, I make one male and the other female. I cover as much as possible of the pin with black shrink tubing. If you choose the series connection, you can put these tether wires in series with the motor on each locomotive. Then provide a DPDT switch in the locomotive that will be the slave. The switch simply disconnects both motor wires from the reversing unit and then shorts them together. This way, you can (and must) plug the two tether pins from each logomotive together when running separately, which keeps them from accidentally touching anything and hides the shiny male pin.
At this point I’m planning on wiring them paralell. I ran a bunch of errands monday getting parts to do all of this modification. This is a fun de-stressing project to do. June was the last time I really did much work on the layout or my trains.