Assistance wanted assembling lighted Weaver Caboose

I am electrically challenged but I hate to see a post go unanswered! Is there more to these cabooses (cabeese?) than an MTH or Lionel lighted caboose? I will happily yank mine apart to help you assemble yours.

@BillYo414 posted:

I am electrically challenged but I hate to see a post go unanswered! Is there more to these cabooses (cabeese?) than an MTH or Lionel lighted caboose? I will happily yank mine apart to help you assemble yours.

Don’t do that.  I will figure this out.

Thanks,

George

George,

Please keep us posted on what/how you do. Selfishly I could benefit. I have a very nice one of theirs made for the Duke Energy Christmas train about 10 or 15 years ago. It is a beauty but runs poorly. I think this is due to the center rail pickup springs just being so stiff. Those pickups raise the car up enough to cause the wheels to sort of glide almost above the tracks. I don't know what to do with this issue. The caboose itself is so gorgeous I'm afraid to mess with it as it appears to be made like the proverbial brick house.

Jim K

@Bogart posted:

George,

Please keep us posted on what/how you do. Selfishly I could benefit. I have a very nice one of theirs made for the Duke Energy Christmas train about 10 or 15 years ago. It is a beauty but runs poorly. I think this is due to the center rail pickup springs just being so stiff. Those pickups raise the car up enough to cause the wheels to sort of glide almost above the tracks. I don't know what to do with this issue. The caboose itself is so gorgeous I'm afraid to mess with it as it appears to be made like the proverbial brick house.

Jim K

Jim,

A very long time ago, I bought one of Weaver's "Northeast" cabooses decorated for the Pennsy.  It wasn't accurate.  I was originally planning to convert it to one of the N5 style cabooses run by Weirton Steel.  Unfortunately, I damaged it.  I then bought an undecorated version that was lit.  One of those had a 4.2 oz weight in it.

Does your caboose seem adequately weighted down to you?  Maybe that is the problem.

George

George,

The unit seems heavy enough. It does not run smoothly on the rails. You push it and it comes to a stop in a few inches after release which makes me think the center pickup is involved.  If I can get inside it I can add some weight. Thanks,

Jim

@Bogart posted:

George,

The unit seems heavy enough. It does not run smoothly on the rails. You push it and it comes to a stop in a few inches after release which makes me think the center pickup is involved.  If I can get inside it I can add some weight. Thanks,

Jim

Here's the weight I have.

George

George, being unfamiliar with the Weaver caboose, I ask is there something about it that would make adding lighting to it more challenging than a typical caboose?  Do the caboose trucks already have the pick-up roller(s) and the axle contact?  Could you maybe post some pics of what you have to work with and the instructions?

@SteveH posted:

George, being unfamiliar with the Weaver caboose, I ask is there something about it that would make adding lighting to it more challenging than a typical caboose?  Do the caboose trucks already have the pick-up roller(s) and the axle contact?  Could you maybe post some pics of what you have to work with and the instructions?

Thank you for responding Steve.  After taking a closer look at the components, I think I've figured it out.

The question that prompted my initial post was:  which color wire is "hot"?  I have a choice of red and brown.  I think the answer is red.

Here are some photos.

The brown wire will be soldered to brass tab, which goes on the axle.

The red wire will be attached to the screw on top of the pick-up roller.

I will post some photos as I proceed through the assembly process.  At the moment I am trying to design / acquire reasonable logo and reporting mark decals.

Thanks again,

George

I'd tend to think that in this instance it doesn't matter whether red or brown goes to AC hot and vice versa.  Since all the AC circuitry would be contained inside the caboose, the source polarity is likely irrelevant.

If the lights are LED, the circuit board probably contains a DC power converter.  The polarity on the DC side does matter.

I hijacked following photo from this OGR thread by @ogaugeguy

which appears to confirm red wires with the "ring terminal" indeed go to the the center-rail pickup rollers.

Note that the topic of this thread was a potential bulb-to-LED conversion.  In the thread the OP was apparently interested in a plug-in LED replacement for the Christmas light string type bulb.  I believe you can now get that style bulb in LED version. 

Since you have it all taken apart anyway, let us know if you're interested in exploring an LED conversion.  Actually I'm curious the purpose of the circuit board in the Weaver.  Is it some kind of constant-brightness circuit?  Is the lighting in this car simply the two bulbs shown or are there other marker lights or whatever not seen?  I stumbled across another OGR thread suggesting it can be challenging to remove the caboose shell (e.g., to change bulbs) so perhaps low-power LEDs might reduce that downstream maintenance chore.   

Thanks Stan!  Useful photograph.

George