I recently picked up a Williams scale Hudson sans tender literally for a song, but it won’t run without it’s tender–the electronic reverse unit and whistle controlers are in it.
I would like to re-wire it to run without any electronicsat all, and since there is no room to install an E-unit in the locomotive, wiring it to run forward only would be fine. I know I need to use a bridge rectifier in the wiring somewhere, but I’m not sure how to go about this. The engine (a huge DC can motor) has a four wire wiring harness that connects to the tender. Should I only connect the poles of the motor to the rectifier?
I plan to use it with my old Lionel Railsounds tender that I currently use with my postwar 646, 675, 736 and 2065 locomotives. It works great–I love the chug-chug-chug and whistle.
It’s important of course to know what those 4 wires are. My guess, which you can verify, is that two of them are for the motor, one connects to the wheels, directly or through the frame, and one is for the pickup. If this is all true, then connect the + and - terminals of the bridge rectifier to the motor and the other 2 terminals (maybe marked ~) to the wheels and pickup. It will make no difference which of the ~ terminals goes to wheels and which to pickup. It does matter for the + and - terminals: Whichever way you connect the motor, it will probably be wrong and the locomotive will run backwards. If so, swap the motor wires.
I recommend that you use something like the Radio Shack 276-1146 4-ampere 50-volt bridge.
Thanks Bob,
I’ll head on down to Radi Shack then heat up my soldering iron !
you are right, 1 of the wires is from the center rail pickup, another is grounded to the can motor shell, and the other two are for the + an - poles, so it should be fairly easy to get it going.
Rich Rigby