19845 Command Control Aquarium Car Whale Speed?

The TMCC shark car speed operates off the cab-1 dial from very slow to fast. Are you sure your cab-1 dial has fresh batteries? First thing that goes on the remote is the red knob when a battery is no good. 

Just a thought.

Ted

I'm not by any means an expert on this car, but I did have to fiddle with one I bought at York a few years ago to get it working properly.

If it's new old stock and has been stagnant in the box for 20+ years (as I am pretty sure mine was), I wonder if the film strip is maybe a bit "formed" to the point where the locations that were wrapped around the sprockets at the ends may have a somewhat permanent curve to them from taking the shape of the sprocket.  That's not unusual for aquarium cars, I don't think.

That might cause the motion to speed up and slow down as the film tries to rotate.  Carefully removing it to check for this may help figure it out.

-Dave

Thanks all, The whales do "swim" but they swim fast!  I can vary the speed somewhat with the speed control but it varies from fast to super fast....seems they move too quickly to me but maybe that is how it was built...does anyone have slow swimming whales???

Thanks again,

S/F Mike

Making them slower may be possible.  It is likely a dc can motor in there. If you add diodes on a motor lead in series each will lower the voltage by 0.75v.

4 diodes inline = -0.75 + -.75 + -.75 + +.75 = -3v

Now when the board outputs 0v-3v, the motor barely sees it's first sign of voltage. Board puts out 5v, motor sees 2v ish.  Prettt easy. Larger amp diodes will remain cooler (voltage used becomes heat) use like 50v+ (or 35v if you like to gamblea little... both usually ok.)  2a should be plenty for the motor, but 4a-6a etc, might be more useful long term and/or reason to buy a small bulk & save.   (or pull some out of an old radio and read the number and look it up for fwd amp/current limit. Try it "4007 diode". You may even see the prefix that is often skipped on the diode to be seen easier. Point is, the numbers are often common.)

You still have to explore for motor heat by testing for an hour or so, checking often, when running at lower rpms.  Watch real close near stall speeds.

To try carefully is a dirt cheap and easy project. Tmcc board won't care.

Considering the current draw of any motor that would be in that car, 1A diodes like the 1N4003 will be much more than sufficient!

Your whale car is working correctly.  Lionel made 2 TMCC aquarium cars.  The whale car was the first one.  The speed control is not that great.  You basically get 2 speeds.  I've had mine repaired once for a radio board issue.  Trying to put a standard r2lc08 in it gave me great speed control but the funky lights no longer worked correctly.  Lionel had to burn the specific code into a r2lc to get the car to work properly.  When they did, the speed control went back to the fast/faster.  So I can only assume its the code in the r2lc.  The shark TMCC car which was the second revision, works much better.  I get true speed control with the remote and the sounds are better.  The lights in the whale car are luminescent panels which required the special code which seems to affect the speed control.

I'd consider adding a bit of analog control in front of the motor to slow it down.

Thanks so much Joe for the insights!  Hard to know when you've only seen one...I do like the light panels!  

Thanks GunrunnerJohn for the simple diode fix!