Howdy all, my whistle on my post war tender will work if I shove the contacts together, but it will not activate off the button, any suggestions on this one? Thanks, Jake
How many and what kind of transformers have you tried?
If your sure its not the transformer you most likely have a bad coil on the horn relay. Have you watched to see if the coil lifts the contacts when activated? Could also be bad wiring to the coil from the rollers. If the rollers are badly worn that could cause the whistle not to blow. We need more details.
Roger
The rollers must be pretty good or he could not blow the whistle by closing the contacts manually.
The transformer is one of the power paks by MTH, Railking,with the red/white/yellow buttons on the left side, comes with their trains I believe. It works other tenders fine. I’ll check the wiring to the coils. When simply sitting on the track, and closed manually, it’s very strong with a good sound. Jake
I have a prob;lem as well with my whistleing tender. I have the 2-6-2 with tender. I rewired the tender this year because the wire was shot and shorting out. Pickups are clean and it whistels like a howling wolf when on the tracks by itself. If I put the engine on at full speed I do not get a whistle. Is there too much of a draw from the engine taking power away from the tender? If I put my 2-4-2 engine on it whistles no problem with its tender and the others. I have an mrc tech II controller and it says O-27 on it so I assume it should be good.
I also have the diese AA set 2417 I believe is the number. With the battery in the powered unit(fresh battery) and on the track I get no horn. But on my father in laws 275 w lionel transforer it blows good. Is my transformer too weak for these engines?
MIke
If you are having problems with the newer transformers and postwar whistles, try reversing the wires to the track. The postwar whistles pick up a d.c. signal from the track that activate the relay and if the polarity is reversed it will not work.
The newer transformers have a sperate button for the horn and the whistle. D.C. polarity one way will activate the horn and the whistle button activates the polarity, the opposite way.
Postwar whistles & horns don’t care about polarity. They will sound with the whistle or bell buttons.
Rob
Rob is certainly correct about that. All the relay cares about is whether there is a DC component, not its polarity.
Possible causes of this problem include a failed (open or shorted) relay coil and an open circuit somewhere in the relay wiring. Note that the frame of the relay is (should be) connected to the frame of the tender. The outer terminal on the top of the relay should be connected to the pickups.
Mixing whistle circuits and transformers of different ages can also cause problems. The whistle relay needs a fairly strong DC component to operate, then tolerates a much lower DC level to stay operated. Postwar transformers are designed to provide this voltage sequence. Modern electronic locomotives can be very sensitive, operating on a low DC voltage without the need for a jolt to pick up the relay. Modern transformers therefore may or may not provide that jolt. It would be useful to know whether this particular tender has operated in the past with this particular transformer.
Bob, it has operated just fine with the set up I have. I was told that the modern MTH Railking power pak would supply the strongest DC input available and the whistle did blow very well, even when the train was running, still, etc. I’m not sure what has happened with it, but it’s very strong when closed manually. If it’s blowing that way very well, what is the most likely bugga boo plaguing this tender? Thanks much, Jake
You say, “…it has operated just fine with the set up I have…” Is that “set up” the “modern MTH Railking power pak” or some other transformer? If the latter, does it still work with that previous transformer? Or has it stopped working with every transformer?
The fact that the whistle blows fine when you close the contacts rules out the motor and its wiring as the problem; but it tells us nothing about the relay’s health beyond the contacts themselves.
Try it at 3/4 throttle or less.
I don’t think Bob Nelson has any modern(phase regulated or chopped sine-wave) transformers.
On newer electronic transformers, the DC offset nearly vanishes at higher throttle settings. As far as I can tell(there are no compensation windings in these units) in my research, the DC offset is derived from the potential between the full output of the transformer secondary windings and the regulated track output. At full throttle, the potential is 0 volts(or pretty darn close) and this is not enough to lift the armature of a traditional Lionel horn/whistle relay. They require a clean 1.5-2 volts DC imposed on the AC(this varies - usually higher - with the characteristic of chopped sine waves).
This behaviour is evident on MRC transformers, as well as the MW, RS-1, CW, BW, PM-1, & ZW w/ bricks, & MTH Z-750/Z-100 transformers.
Rob
Visually everything appears OK, but I’ve not tested anything electronically yet. I’ll do that sometime today, Jake
Jake, check to be sure that you have voltage across the coil when you have voltage on the track. That would rule out faulty wiring.
Boy do I feel stupid. When rechecking everything I took a look at the distance between the contacts and it’s HUGE. Once I regapped the setting, everything worked flawlessly. Sorry for all the confusion. I guess I still have not learned to check the obvious first. Thanks for all the efforts, problem now solved. I have to say the thing sounds pretty darn good for post war old technology! Jake
Looks like you got it! While reading through the thread I was going to suggest that. Good luck! Just the other day I rehabilitated an old 6466W. Great feeling when it all works out!
Mike