Looking for the switches on this 2010 Aristo RS3. It has 2 wire plugs at each end. Somebody installed a revolution long ago. I want to plug a battery into one of these plugs.
Know where they are, or even if there are any?
Tom, I have always believed that the wire plugs at each end were fitted to most Aristo locos after 2005. I don’t have a 2010 RS3 but do have 2005 and 2006 versions. If the 2010 models are the same then they are underneath a panel in roof of the long hood - nearest to the cab. On my locos there are three switches. Track - Battery, Lights on - off and smoke on - off. I can’t think that there would be a different place on any RS3 but of course I may be wrong.
.
Yup, I just looked. The roof panel, in front of the air horns, lifts off revealing the switches.
Ah! There they are.
Thanks. I knew they had to be here somewhere. You guys are the best.
Glad to be of help Tom. I keep a Rio Grande RS3 set for track power and my two Milwaukee Road ones are set for battery operations. I never use smoke and as I have a small back yard sound is not added. However they suit my line immensely.
Tom (or others) ;
Here is a link to George Schreyer’s tips;
http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips2/rs3_tips.html
Includes a list of diff. that he was aware of for reportedly 5 generations of Aristo RS3s !
doug c
There are actually 6 generations, the one past 5 they turned the insides backwards AGAIN!
Greg
With my battery plugged in the rear connector, the RS3 pulled its train without incident all day long.
Greg, I wonder what will happen if PGN has some made.
Probably backwards… the history is interesting, and we figured a few things out about the manufacturing assembly process. For years the underside of the aristo freight cars were put in the car backwards. Aristo kept asking to do it right… no soap.
What was finally found out is that the factory does NOT look at any assembly drawings or read any information, they have one each of everything built and it goes on the shelf with the molds.
The “sample” was assembled wrong, and the factory workers assembled the cars (and the insides of the RS3) to match the sample.
Aristo was never good in quality control, and if they had just manned up and grabbed the sample and put it together correctly this would have been fixed. But this is the fundamental difference between Aristo and USAT, USAT demanded good QC, and Aristo did not (although we suspect that it was because of them squeezing every penny).
Greg
Yea I was wondering about the undersides of my boxcars, they looked backward to me, but I am not taking them apart to fix that. I did fix the few that I replaced the undersides on, to lower them.
And yea, Aristo quality control was famous (infamous). I was rather upset when my first run PCC arrived and the wheel flanges would not fit inside the rails. I joked that was built to the proper Pittsburgh Railways gauge of 5 foot 2.5 inches.