Victoria BC: Postwar O Lionel RDC - Easy conversion to battery power & with LED lights (see blurb) скачать в хорошем качестве

Victoria BC: Postwar O Lionel RDC - Easy conversion to battery power & with LED lights (see blurb)

Given I have two 32 mm gauge unpowered tracks outdoors with plenty of room to grow (where I normally run large scale live steam locomotives), given my indoor space only allows for a small tight curved O gauge toy train railway, given I wanted to see my O coarse scale train collection run through natural scenery, given that fiddling with track power issues and the like is a distraction, and given battery technology is improving, I have slowly been converting my O gauge engines to battery power. The first two being modern K-Line, followed by a modern Mike’s Train House (MTH) engine. At first I was nervous about it. However, I have found it interesting, enjoyable and easy. If you like to tinker, want more freedom with your trains, and like problem solving this is for you. This video shows my 1990s Lionel Canadian National RDC. It is built vintage postwar style so internally it is similar to my 1950s Lionel engines - complete with analogue electromagnetic reversing unit (e-unit). This unit converts the track AC power to DC and directs the polarity to the motor. It cycles when the power goes off and on through forward - neutral - reverse, etc. I learned online that these engines will run on DC power as well. For various reasons of simplicity, and train accessories, AC was used for 0 gauge toy trains. So I experimented. I put the positive battery wire to the middle third rail power pickup which I deduced must be positive as well. I then placed the negative battery wired on a part of the frame of the loco and voila! The motor turned and the e-unit cycled! As a caution I suspect that long term use may magnetize the plunger in the e-unit. I don’t know the details but am comforted that there are ways to demagnetize the e-unit should this happen. When and if it does I’ll do the research and make a video. As a final note, toy (coarse scale) trains are not fully true to scale - even the very fine scale-like ones. They still have big couplers and wheels and the pilots swing with the trucks and whatnot. This RDC is not a scale representation. Many details differ from the real thing, the truck side frames are different, the scale length is much shorter, and so I don’t mind adding a potentiometer knobby bit sticking up through the roof. Let’s just say it’s a radio antenna thing like some of the experiments on real engines back in the day. Happy model railroading! Terry