I have two older K-Line S-2 switchers and with my ZW they just FLY around the track. How or what do I need to do to reduce their speed so the grandkids don’t put them into orbit?
They are K2321 and K2331. They look like the RMT Bang but do about 300mph to scale.
What I would like to do is put something in the line from the ZW to the track main feed that can dial dowm the voltage if there is such a thing. Then i can reduce what the kiddies can do with any train.
Thanks in advance
My K-Line S-2 does the same. The problem is the S-2 starts at too low a voltage and Lionel transformers mininum voltage (after zero) is about 8 VAC. Even my little blue 50 watt 4150 starts at 7.7 VAC. I have to load the S-2 down with a few cars to avoid its going into orbit at the end of a straight. I will be interested in any advice you get.
Too bad Marn-o-stats are not in production anymore.
Reference: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/51838/655626.aspx
Kev are the dual motors and if so have you rewired them so they are wired in series so you can get lower speeds out of them
Yeah RT they are dual motors but I just got them today and have not done anything to them yet. I also have other late 80s and early 1990s with the can motors that do the same so that is why i was looking for an in line reduction option.
Your best bet here is indeed rewiring the motors in series. It will simplify the instructions for that if you will tell us exactly what color wires are connected where on the motors and from the motors to whatever wiring board you have.
If there are 4 wires connected to the wiring board, see whether you can tell whether the wires (probably of like color) are actually connected together through the traces on the wiring board.
Take a look: http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogShowThread?id=488&categoryId=
The J&C Studios O Gauge Archive is most assuredly a “must bookmark” place.
Pete
Bob, What are your thoughts on this option?
What I would like to do is put something in the line from the ZW to the track main feed that can dial dowm the voltage if there is such a thing. Then i can reduce what the kiddies can do with any train.
Thanks Pete.
Looks good, but.
I would still like to have something I could put in the control panel where it could act like a throttle stop for the kids. Behind the transformer and in front of the track.
Tks,
Kev
Kev - could you use a dimmer from the hardware store?
I’ll also go with the series wiring of the motors. In a lot of engines it’s as simple as cutting two wires off the eunit circuit board and wire nutting them together.
As someone else has stated, the problem with engines is that they are meant to run on lower voltage than what most postwar transformers start out at. If you cannot rewire the motor leads, your next best option would be to use a Lionel 1033 transformer to run them with. The 1033 can be hooked up to put 0 to 11 volts to the track (or 7 to 18…). This will allow for slower running. Adding a double throw switch would allow you to select which transformer is powering the rails.
I don’t know if any modern transformers have a track power that start out at 0 volts. I would imagine K-line transformers did, as they made these little rockets, but I don’t know for certain.
J White
Bob here is how they are wired.
Blue and brown coming out of board connecting to Blue and Yellow
Tks,
That makes it easy. I would disconnect the yellow wire from each motor, then connect those two now-bare motor terminals together with another wire. You can cut the loose yellow wires short if you want; but I would just insulate the loose ends, in case you ever want to reverse the operation.
As for putting something between the transformer and the track instead, a dimmer meant for household lights isn’t going to work right for this. There is a trick, using pairs of antiparallel diodes, that has been described many times on the forum. The easiest way to do it is to use bridge-rectifier modules, like this one http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062580 , not as rectifiers but just as a convenient way to get the needed diodes in a compact package. You wire the + and - terminals of the rectifier module (the two outer terminals in the picture) together. Then you connect the module in series between the transformer and the track using the two ~ terminals (the two inner terminals in the picture). Each module that you put in series gives you roughly a1-volt reduction; so you will need a bunch of them to get a significant total reduction. Rewiring the motors is much easier.
Bob,
Can I just cut the yellows away from where they join the brown and blue and tie them together?
Would that do the same thing?
Thanks Bob!
Yes, but that makes it harder to restore the locomotive to its original condition. In any case, do it first the way I described, without cutting anything, so you can recover if I got it wrong.
Okay, Thanks Bob,
Bob and RT,
I modified my 2321 that is running to series wiring to slow it down like you guys suggested and it worked GREAT. It now runs at the same rate as the RMT Bang S-4
Wayne this is the answer for these K-Line S-2s
Thank you so much, [bow]
Kev.
Glad that solved the problem happy railroading
You’re welcome!
Instruction manual indicates some of these S-2 Diesel Switchers have a Series/Parallel switch. 
Now that would of been a nice option. Mine do not have that. Must of been on the later ones.
Do your have the switch Wayne?
Tks,
Kev
That your locomotive didn’t have such a switch was evident from the pictures, Kev.
It strikes me that this kind of switch is very prototypical. Traditional diesel-electric prototype locomotives have such switches, to keep the motor voltages more or less constant as the train speed varies. Switching the wiring between parallel and series is called “transition”.
Early SW-1s had all four motors wired in series all the time. NW-2s and later SW-1s rewired the motors at transition into two parallel strings, each comprising the two motors wired in series. On the F3, which was designed for higher speeds, the transition was between the latter series-parallel arrangement and a full-parallel wiring.
It’s possible to have two transitions on a 4-motor locomotive, and three on a 6-motor locomotive (like the H24-66 Trainmaster); but I don’t know of any examples of more than one transition.
