I am trying to put sound in my 3 PA juice hogs. I think the right decoder is a Lenz Silver because of it’s high stall rating. I need an answer as to a sound system to hook up. I figure to put the sound in a PB unit. My engineer son in law tells me that if I wire the sound system in parallel the high amperage won’t go through the sound unit. Basically, I know I could remotor them, but I wonder if there’s another way. The PA’s may be juice hogs, but they run superbly.
Take them apart and remove the factory lube…it will have gunked up. The best way to remove it is the disassemble the trucks and put the gears/housings in a seal able glad container. Add water/soap and shake. Dry…reassemble and then use a quality plastic compatible lube sparingly. You will find that the units wont draw near as much current as before.
David B
All the tuning in the world won’t fix one of the ones that Life-Like put ‘wrong’ motors in. However, that is only a very limited production series, all the other ones are fine and shouldn’t overload an HO decoder. The only way to know absolutely for sure is to test with a DC supply and meter. Stall the motor by holding the flywheel while maintaining 12 volts, and read the current. If it’s in the 3-4 amp range, it’s one of the bad ones and you really should remotor it. 1-1.5 amps and it’s fine, if a bit high, but still within the limits of most HO decoders.
–Randy