An American Flyer S gauge 1951

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[@ronalddevine9587]

I could listen to that choo choo all day long. Nothing beats Flyer smoke and choo choo. Those postwar link couplers left a lot to be desired.

[@MygrandpasTrain]

290's are a great candidate to experiment with and improve

[@zdrummer72]

The way I get more smoke output is to insert 2 (maybe 3) bridge rectifiers in series to one of the motor brushes. These act like a resistor and Each BR drops the motor voltage by .6 volts., giviing more voltage to the smoke unit and headlight.

[@AndrewF150]

Great idea i might try this on my 302 locomotive. It well only start smoking with headlight on and not moving forward or backwards.

[@cbmonje]

A 5 millimeter LED makes a good headlight when using a rectifier and resistor. The LED itself makes a good lens. They’re available ready to go from Evan Design. Evan Design describes the LED setup as 7 to 19 V. 5mm is .2”, about 13/64. ( 13 divided by 64 = .2 )

[@MarkWick]

Thank you for adding the dimensions of the Lucite tube. I also watched and listened with interest as you talked about the problem with tender wheel contact with the rails. I have one or two locomotives with a similar problem. I am fairly certain a bent crossbar between the tender and loco is the problem on one of them, but it is the only one I have with a cross bar that has a low attachment to the tender and high attachment to a bar at the back of the cab, so I don't have a proper one to compare to. I will get it sorted out. Thanks again.

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

Thanks for the response Mark.

[@flyerjunction]

If you are having trouble with tender wheel contact, you may want to check the truck to make sure it is not bent or twisted in some way. All wheels should be in contact with a straight and level piece of track. Also check the tender frame for straightness. I believe the drawbar you mention has bends that are all at or near 90 degrees. It is designed to have some play for up and down movement.

[@-MAILMAN]

I had this identical problem with a 283 Pacific. I had to get a mini maglite and shine it from the opposite side to see the miniscule gap between the wheel and the rail. This caused the locomotive stop when traveling at slow speeds across a 720A switch. Turns out the rear truck had been tweaked when I received it. Once identified the problem got solved, no more stoppages. Key was using the light to expose the gap.

[@-MAILMAN]

Little Steamers has 5 wire jack panels. The 5-wire is created by disconnecting the wire from the armature on the engineer side of the locomotive only and soldering it to the front/inside of the 5-wire jack panel. You then solder a wire from the back/outside of the jack panel and solder the other end to essentially the rivet of the rear tender truck. Factory 5 wire was continuous from the electrical junction on the reverse unit (for the rear tender truck) to the wire for the smoke unit and head light. The other wire for the head light and smoke unit stays attached to the armature winding on the fireman side of the locomotive. The only difference is that factory had a continuous wire from the tender to the headlight/smoke unit and the "field mod if you will" has a connection point at the jack panel so you can still use the four wire plug. What you are doing is splitting the current in a parallel circuit from the track instead of splitting a lower current at the armature having gone through the reverse unit and/or speaker circuit. This is why the bulb is brighter and the smoke unit produces smoke at a lower throttle setting.

[@flyerjunction]

Nice video! Those were some good experiments to help deal with performance and apearance issues. I assume there may have been excessive resistance in the original circuit configuration and adding the additional wiring improved current flow. Thank you for sharing.

[@-MAILMAN]

Without going into the electrical theory of series and parallel circuits. Basically you are getting track current from the rear truck rivet directly to the smoke unit and head light with a 5th wire. In the original wiring by connecting the wires to the armature winding on the engineer side of the locomotive you are spitting the current (voltage is equal on parallel legs of a parallel circuit, but current is not because it is proportional to the resistance) available at that point between the armature winding and the smoke unit and headlight. Therefore the current on the leg of the parallel circuit is lower than that of the track going to the smoke unit and headlight. This is why a fifth wire gives you a brighter head light and more smoke volume because the current available is higher. Current to the motor field windings is also higher ergo higher speed.

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

I could not tell that there was any extra resistance. The 4 wire jack panel shares power for the motor, smoke unit and headlight. Since they each need some amps from the supply it takes more power as a whole. Providing separate supply lines as in this example means the individual parts do not have to share. I suppose a person could seperate the smoke unit and headlight so they also had their own supply but that seems unnecessary.

[@flyerjunction]

@@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains I agree with your thoughts. I was assuming that the smoke unit was not working in the original configuration because of more resistance than normal. Otherwise, it should have been smoking. I like that you got it working even better than it would have been originally. The smoke and headlamp come on when the engine is powered up in neutral.

[@FrancisOConnor-ch1us]

Great video. I’m going to try that on one of my Frankenlocos . Audio was difficult to hear over the engine noise.

[@terrymatvichuk1421]

Good Idea! Could you say something about the hand held remote that you said you were using ? , Thanks

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

The MTH z-4000 has an add on wireless remote

[@josephschuster1494]

Very useful video, Austin! Where did you acquire the Lucite rod to replace the broken lens? 🚂

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

Hmmm...been several years ago...came as a 4 or 5 foot length.... it was online...maybe mcmaster-carr?

[@plunkervillerr1529]

Marx guy here, me Flyer prewar 420 shell and Marx motor wedding, she go poup.

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

Sorry to hear.

[@jmstang3021]

It's a beautiful set, just a shame you can’t operate the LTI Flyer PAs for more than 15 minute runs. The motors get hot and start running inconsistent until the E-unit throws a fit. On the can motor equipped PAs, the E-unit seems to overheat and shut things down.

[@AustinsAmericanFlyertrains]

Fortunately I do not have that issue with mine.