Is there a way to reduce the drag on the Aristocraft Sierra cars but still have the lights work as bright as they do?
Have these got the old Delton style pickups?
Generally it’s the brush assemblies that cause it.
Do the wheels roll freely in the non-brushed wheelsets?
A quick fix is ball-bearing wheelsets with solder tabs on the inside.
Solder the wires to those, remove the pickups, and yer set!
TOC
Curmudgeon said:
Have these got the old Delton style pickups?Generally it’s the brush assemblies that cause it.
Do the wheels roll freely in the non-brushed wheelsets?
A quick fix is ball-bearing wheelsets with solder tabs on the inside.
Solder the wires to those, remove the pickups, and yer set!TOC
I am not familiar with what the Delton style of pickups are like. Yes, the none brushed wheels roll very nicely! However, the pickup wheels do not. Not to mention that they make a noise constantly when the train is moving which is almost like finger nails on a chaulk board. When you say the ball bearing wheelsets are you referring to the LGB pickup wheels?
Yes, LGB makes them, as do somebody else.
I never use them, but folks that do say they work.
I do believe Eastside has them.
Just make sure they have tabs on the inside of the wheels to connect the wires to.
You CAN do all 4 axles on each car and wire them all up, and your light flicker should never come back, or just one per truck.
Make absolutely certain you don’t cross the wires up!
TOC
timmyd,
I had the same issue with my older Sierra cars. The brushes made a lot of noise and the drag was pretty heavy. I installed the Aristo BB Wheel sets with power pick up tabs, one axle in each truck. They come two axles per package. ART29123B is the number. List price is high but I just got three sets from Ridge Road Station for $21.95 ea.
Very little or no flicker of lights with theses. Replacing the other two axels would probably eliminate all flicker but for me not worth another $21.95.
Be carfull with polarity. In three cars I found red and black wires switched. Sometimes the wires came up through the trucks, then crossed, other times not.
Anyone know if the new Sierra cars have the BB wheel sets for power pick up or are they still the carbon brush power pickups???
Ward
Gold Dawg RR
I put the BB wheelsets on mine and they roll very nice.
These are still heavy cars.
What I did to my USA woodside cabeese was cut the wires off at the brushes, and removed the brushes. Then installed a rechargeable battery inside. You pull the wires up inside the car and then you can use the factory off/on switch.
You don’t run the cars with the lights on all the time, anyway. Just the few times at dark when you want to.
jb
Ok…now some of you got me concerned when you say to make absolutely sure to not get the wires crossed. The wires a color coated red and black. If I make sure that red is on one side on both axels and black is on the other isn’t that what needs to be done?
Not necessarily so.
The trucks are pre-made at a workbench in Chiny all facing the same direction. (That way they don’t have to keep track of left/right trucks when they assemble the cars. They just reach in and grab two and screw them on.) When they are installed on the coaches, they face opposite direction, thus the black/reds are opposed.
This is particularly true on the old Aristo Heavyweights.
You have to trace them out.
jb
Ok…but that doesn’t help. If I wire black to black on each side of a car and red to red on each side of a car that should work … correct?
Take a look at one of your cars upside down and write down which color is on what side. Mark an “X” on one truck and an “X” on the car bottom. Do the same to your drawing. Piece of cake, even if the wires were blue, purple or chartreuse.
Just re-assemble the new bb wheels back the same way.
ok… but isn’t that what I am saying?
If red is on the left side on both trucks and black is on the right side of both trucks, then wire the new BB axels the same?
Yes, IF they were wired with the correct colors to begin with.
Several manufacturers don’t use the same colors throughout a production run, some locomotives change red and black front to rear.
Just if the red wires go to the same side, great, keep them that way and you’ll be fine.
Cross one up and you’ll have a dead short.
TOC
I carefully trace them out and somehow still wind up with a short. Remember to reverse 1 truck when you fix the short, not both.
I MUd five of my six Sierras and removed the contacts/springs from the trucks. One of the combines will hold a battery [choice of 12v., 14.4v, 18v, or 19.2v.]. I also can hook the MUs on the cars to the tender of my Pacific, LGB Mikado, or other locos. Most of the time I run RC/battery. If I choose to run track power I can re-install one set of springs/contacts per car and MU everything together, or connect to the tender [as was done in the pics attached], or both. All of those incandescent bulbs do seem to draw a low of current, and battery life is about three hours for the Sierras if I use all the bulbs. As soon as I get some more connectors, I will MU the last car. By removing the spring contacts, my battery life on the prime movers [locos] increased by 50% while running on the layout.
Jim C.
Jim Carter said:
I MUd five of my six Sierras and removed the contacts/springs from the trucks. One of the combines will hold a battery [choice of 12v., 14.4v, 18v, or 19.2v.]. I also can hook the MUs on the cars to the tender of my Pacific, LGB Mikado, or other locos. Most of the time I run RC/battery. If I choose to run track power I can re-install one set of springs/contacts per car and MU everything together, or connect to the tender [as was done in the pics attached], or both. All of those incandescent bulbs do seem to draw a low of current, and battery life is about three hours for the Sierras if I use all the bulbs. As soon as I get some more connectors, I will MU the last car. By removing the spring contacts, my battery life on the prime movers [locos] increased by 50% while running on the layout. [url]
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[/url] Jim C.
um… MU???
Connected the cars using plugs like Aristo does between it’s diesel locos. This is the type plugs I used [AllElectronics].
JimC.
<<um… MU???>>
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