PA-1 B unit upgrade

[dac675]

Hi.  I am wondering if the Williams PA-1 B (dummy) units (22704, in particular) can be upgraded as the dummy A can with the powered retrofit kit.  Please advise.
Thanks!

[3rail]

Dear Dac,

Yes they can! The appropriate upgrade kits for the A,  will work in the B unit too.

Item 00243 Works with ALCO PA-1 and PB-1, E7 A & B.

Item 00241 Works with Sharks A & B, F7 A&B, FA-1, and FB-1.

Item 00244 Works with F-3 A & B.

Regards,

3rail

[phillyreading]

I would not have thought to change over the B unit but I guess it will work as well. Only the coupler change out would be differant than on the A unit.

From my experiance with the F-7 power-upgrade kit, be sure that both engines go about the same speed after the upgrade, or you may burn out a set of motors in about a year or more.

Lee F.

[mekump]

I am installing the 00243 kit into a E7 dummy A unit. I am not sure how best to mount the circuit board to the frame. Does anyone have a picture of one installed that could be posted?

thanks,
Mike

[phillyreading]

I used a hot glue gun to install my circuit board and mounted the circuit board on a thin piece of styrofoam. The styrofaom keeps any electrical flow from going to the frame and shorting out, thus cutting out electrical problems.
The only problem with installation was that I had to drill the small screw holes out a little on the metal step brackets, try to go one sixty/fourth of an inch larger each time or you may drill it too large. I used B & D high speed stainless steel drill bits to drill the holes larger.

Lee F.

[mekump]

Lee, Thanks for the advice.

I finally finished installing the 00243 into the E7 dummy. But before attaching the body to the frame I ran it on a test track with my powered E7. I found the newly powered E7 dummy is much faster then the powered E7. Is this going to be a problem for them to run connected to each other? Or is there a way I can slow down the E7 dummy?

Mike

[Joe Satnik]

Clean and lube the chassis on the old one?

[phillyreading]

Mike,

Not sure if that will be a big problem or not, but from what I know about electric motors, one will have to run harder to keep up and may overheat doing so. At least that's how I have been told about post-war trains and motors.

What I did because I had two sets of similar F-7's was to use the old motors from another F-7 of the same year thereby giving two powered A units, and install the new motors inside another powered A unit that I got the old motors from.

Lee F.

[mekump]

Thank you for the feedback.

I recently bought this set at a local train show. The dummy had a broken 'truck mount' so I thought I would install the upgrade kit to help the powered E7 pull the 5 passenger cars and the dummy E7. But I guess the 2 motors in the powered E7 should be sufficient.

I had hoped they would be closer to running the same speed but since they do not, I think I will just go back and make it a non-powered E7 dummy. So, now I just need to order the 'truck mount'. It's too bad the upgrade kit doesn't have some type of adjustment built into the circuit to adjust the speed so that it could be adjusted to closely match the powered E7 . At least that way it would be closer to running the same speed as the powered E7.

Mike

[671]

Hi mekump,
             671 here. I have one thought on your situation with the "B" unit running much faster than the existing "A" unit.
             You may have an "A" that was rewired from factory parallel wiring to a series wiring.
             Changing the wiring to a series wiring is a common practice. It allows two motored loco's the ability to run much slower at a given voltage setting.
             A knowledgeable person on parallel wiring versus series wiring is Joe Satnik.
             Joe, if you are out there, please "chime" in on this. You may be able to help mekump, if this is the challenge.

                           Hope this helps...671

[Joe Satnik]

Dear All,

NOTE: Use this only to recognize modified wiring. DO NOT use as instructions to do the mods.

Stock (parallel) wiring has 2 motor plugs, 2 wires each, plugged into the reverser board.  (2x2=4 motor wires total to the reverser board.)

A series re-wire would have a wire from each of the motors connected to one another (and isolated/insulated from all else), with the remaining wire from each motor connected to the reverser board.  (2 wires total to the reverser board.)

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[mekump]

Thanks 671 and Joe.

I checked the powered E7 and it appears the motors are wired in parallel since each motor has a plug that goes to the reverser board.

There are 2 more circuit boards in the powered unit. I assume one of them is for sound since it connects to what looks like a speaker. It's mounted to the top of the reverser board. I am using an old Lionel ZW transformer. How do I activate the sound? I didn't know it had sound, so I guess it was good that I opened it up. The second board is much smaller and is mounted in front of the front motor. It has two plugs that go to two lights mounted up in the cab. Not sure why a circuit board is needed for the lighting. So, all together there are three lights in the powered E7.

Mike

[Joe Satnik]

Dear mekump,

More than likely some kind of voltage regulator board for constant cab lighting, or a series resistor board if the cab lights are LEDs.

Could you post a close up photo of the board?

Your ZW has a whistle/direction slider switch on each of the 2 long handle variable track power circuits.  

The 2 inner ring/stubby handle track power circuits do not have whistle circuits.  

Simply slide the switch up to activate the TBII (True-Blast 2) whistle/horn (if "Common" connected to the outer rails),

or slide the switch up to activate the TBII bell (if "Common" connected to the center rail).

Rectifier disks (the key component needed to activate whistles/horns/bells) gone bad are common in old ZWs.

Many techs replace the rectifier disks with high current diodes.  (Requires mods to ZW)

More discussion:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,13927.0.html

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Edit: changed "whistle" to "TBII (True-Blast 2) whistle/horn"

Edit: changed "bell" to "TBII bell"

Edit: changed "Bad rectifier disks" to "Rectifier disks(...........)gone bad"

Edit: changed "whistles" to whistles/horns/bells"

Edit: added "Many techs replace the rectifier disks with high current diodes.  (Requires mods to ZW)"

[M1FredQ]

While we are on the subject.

I recently purchased 2  NW-2 switcher engines different rail lines, My son put both

on the same track and one ran faster than the other.

Since it seems fun to have a double hook up as seen in some photos, does WBB

make non-powered units? Just wondering.

Every engine we have purchased from WBB looks great on the layout and is a lot of

fun to run.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks!!!

Can't tell you how relaxing it is after a stressful intense day to later after things

settle down go downstairs with my train lovin son and run those units for about 10

or 20 minutes before bedtime !!!!!!  Thanks Bachman

[mekump]

Joe,

I have a picture of the circuit board but I do not know how to upload the picture.

Any help would be appreciated.

Mike