AC or DC motor

It has dual can motors (DC motors), and you can use the ERR Cruise Commander for an upgrade.  You can also use the ERR DC Commander, though I'd use the Cruise Commander.

For future reference, the motors look different. AC motors (AKA pullmore, open frame, series wound) are open, you can see the brushes and the armature. Can motors look like little silver cans, and often have flywheels on one end.

Another way to tell is that many of the AC motored O gauge locos will allow the wheels to rotate by hand, whereas most of the can motored locos will not allow this. Turning the wheels by hand has nothing to do with the motor type, but more to do with the gear ratio.

Actually, many of the diesel models don't allow you to rotate the wheels with the Pulmor motor.  Also, most of the Legacy locomotives now have gears that allow you to turn the wheels and spin the motor.

Yeah John I thought we had talked about this. The reason I asked again was I wired the F3 up to a Cruise Commander this morning and nothing worked. I checked the wiring, traced it back, metered it out, everything was the way it was supposed to be. Then I tried wiring it up using different configs like one motor at a time, then swapping track power from the front trunks and rear trucks. Nothing worked so I started thinking maybe these motors could be AC. In any case I stripped everything out of the F3 and put the ERR in another engine and it worked flawless. So I'm thinking now those motors in the F3 may be bad.

The AC motor requires 3 wires to run, where the DC motors require 2. G

You can test the motors with a DC supply, I like to test them individually.  It could have been a simple wiring issue.

A DC motor has a permanent magnet in the base of the plates surrounding the armature.  

AC motor has a copper wound coil (plainly visible) in the base of the plates surrounding the armature.    

If I convert a pullmore motor to dc via a bridge on the field can I then use electric rr cruise control?

Tested the motors with a DC power supply both of them pulsed. Not sure what that means but they weren't running smoothly

No.  Jon Z. looked the possibility of a number of configurations for cruise and AC motors, none worked well enough for ERR to produce a product.

"The AC motor requires 3 wires to run, where the DC motors require 2. "

Could you please explain this assertion? I have never seen a single-phase, commutated, series-wound, AC motor that required more than two wires.

The third wire allows for reversing which is a function of the relationship of the field to the armature. reverse the two brush wires and the motor reverses.

Pete

Nope.

The field is wired in series with the armature. One wire in, one wire out is all that is REQUIRED to make it go.

1 ------> ARMATURE------>FIELD------> 2

Internally reverse the field OR the armature winding (not both) using an E-unit and the motor reverses. It still has TWO wires on the input, not three.

Arthur, since we were talking Lionel Train motors I thought I would keep it simple.  Why be so difficult?

Pete is correct, a reversing unit allows the AC current to be switch between brushes while keeping the flow through the field winding the same.  G

Art, there is no internal connection between the armature and the field. Its external. In one direction one brush is tied to the e unit or electronic board and the other to the field. In the other direction the other brush is tied to the e unit hot and the first to the field. The third wire is connected to one side of the field, the other side is hard wired to ground so the field wires cannot be swapped. If you still have doubts open up a post war engine and follow the leads.

Pete

WOW, you're sure being hard-headed here!  For model train use, there are three wires coming from whatever reversing unit you're using to the motor in order to provide the capability to run in reverse.  Regardless if you reverse the connections to the armature or use a split field, you still have three wires.

Please post your diagram that shows how we do this with two wires to the motor and still provide reverse.

I do not think that a precise description of how something works is being "difficult" or "hard headed." When a misconception, or a casual observation, is promoted as fact, then new hobbyists may get the wrong idea about the fundamental ways that things work. The better way is to start off by teaching the basics, with simple theory, then advance to the practical applications in a particular field.

Single-phase motors use two wires. Trying to determine what kind of motor is in a toy train by counting the wires is not a precise way to understand what's going on.  Saying that a single-phase, universal motor "REQUIRES" three wires is not accurate.

Saying that it "uses" three wires, in conjunction with external controls (such as an E-unit) is much more precise, and less confusing. I was trying more to comment on the use of the word "requires" than on the rest of the assertion.

As ever, I am available to explain to anyone who wishes to contact me directly, how electrical stuff works, and how it can be controlled. My 45 year career being hard-headed (I prefer precise) has served me, and my students, well over the years.

Millions of universal motors woke up this morning and went to work, using two wires. Not one of them asked themselves "How am I doing this?"

So why didn't you post the additional details to be more precise vice one sentence zinger?  G

And none of them reversed their rotation.

As was pointed out a pure d.c. motor has a permanent magnet for the field. An universal series wound motor will operate with the input from either a d.c. or a.c. power source.

Now with a pure d.c. motor changing the polarity of the power source WILL change the armature's direction of rotation.

For the universal series wound motor changing the d.c. polarity will NOT change the armature's direction of rotation. There must be a switch used to change the current flow thru the brushes. (It's the same method that is used if the power source was a.c.)

Buzz word definition: Series wound motor — the armature winding is in series with the field winding. (This combo is then connected to the power source.)

Ron M

Does it look like this? If so the motor is DC.

Long ago we established it has DC motors, then we got into an esoteric discussion of AC motors for reasons I still can't fathom!

I used to run all my old lionel with dc track current and had the motor wired with a full wave BR.   I completely removed the e-unit . I just can't remember the wiring..., Why did I do it... lash-ups, they never got out of sink.

Sorry, lost in the footwork was your actual problem.  Sorry to hijack your thread with all the nonsense about AC motors, since you don't have that.

If the motors don't run smoothly on a DC supply, that's the first thing you have to resolve.  What voltage were you testing them at?  They should run fine at 5V and only draw a couple hundred ma or so.

Very interesting thread!! The good news is it's working. It was a bit more of a project than I thought it was going to be. Problem was in the trucks. I ended up having to overhaul them. I rewired them, then I noticed the gears weren't turning very well so I took everything apart lubed it up and put things back together. I reinstalled the engines one at time testing along the way and both engines worked great. This was my first experience with a cruise commander and other than the first set of challenges which had nothing to do with the cruise commander, things went very well. The sound board is a slam dunk just mount the speaker, mount the board, plug it in, job done! sounds good too. It's a really easy setup. So now that that the power is squared away I need to sort out the lighting. Anybody have a wiring schematic for a 6-14536 F3? or maybe the wiring schematic from any scale F3 from that time period, they could be the same. I've got the 2 front lighting PCB boards from that model and I want to see if I can transplant those assemblies into this engine.

Great, glad you got it sorted out.

Check the attached file, it may give you insights into the wiring, there are many representative wiring diagrams, including several diesels with lighting boards.

Thanks John that was a huge help got me going in the right direction.