Brass GE 44 tonner; 3 rail

Do you want direction control or just basic forward running?  If you want single direction running, a bridge rectifier will do the trick.  If you want direction control, an electronic E-Unit like the Dallee Model 400 will be fine for the task.

It was running previously to getting it painted, but I believe the wires were replaced in the wrong place on the motors. I am just looking to getting it back together & running again

Is this the 44 tonner you are talking about?? A Rich Yoder 44 tonner.  There were two boards a small constant voltage board to run the head lights and a Rectifier/Electronic reversing board in the tank below the cab.  Unfortunately I removed the Rectifier/E board, which  has (4) wires two red and two black, I don't know which leads are AC input and which are DC to the motors,   

One black would hook to the frame.

One red would hook to the two third rail pick-ups. 

The other black would hook to first  motor negative and positive on the second motor. A lead from the constant voltage board would also be connected in this splice  

The other red would be hooked to the first motor positve and the second motor negative.  The other constant voltage board lead would be here.  

There is usually a red dot by the positive terminal on each motor.   

It would be helpful to know what's inside.  I can't imagine they had to screw with the motor wiring to do a paint job.

Yes Mike; this is from Rich Yoder's collection. I will have a look @ my 44 tonner & see if some of the things that u mentioned are somewhere close to what u have described.

This is the Rich Yoder 44 tonner drive board.  I've upgraded mine to ERR TMCC so this was removed long ago.  Unfortunately as I mentioned before the two blacks and two reds are no help.  Maybe someone familiar with these convention electronic drive boards could help. Two of the four are track pick-up and the other two are motor power either forward or reverse. The other small constant voltage board was wired to the motor leads so that the head lights would reverse with direction.   All assuming your 44 tonner has not been upgraded.  I'm not sure what would have been done on a paint job to cause the wiring not to work.  My guess is the black and red pairs "X" criss-crossed but that still doesn't tell which pair  is AC pick-up and DC to the motors.

Just a note:  This is a three rail 44 tonner, there are Rich Yoder 2 rail DC 44 tonners??   

Well, two are going to go to the rails and two to the motor, it appears to be like most other simple electronic reverse boards.

It would be nice to see what the current state of the wiring is.

This board is installed with a double face sticky pad in the fuel tank area. Then twist nutted to other wiring.  Poor wiring at best, IMO.   I would start with these connections before dis-assembling the model, they tend to be fragile.

Why not contact Rich and ask him. He has a website. I'll bet he could help you.

Simon

Thank you to all for the assstance. Mike where do find one of those ERR's; I don't use DCC; I basically have a large switching yard of both large & O scale so  I am using a ZW. I am trying to attach a photo of what I have to work with & will be attempting to repair today.

Can you post the same photo with the underside of the board shown?

That's some odd wiring, it looks like the motors may be in series with one end grounded to the frame.  Both motor leads should go to the board, only the input AC from the track should come from the frame.

It's not clear where those wires to the motor are going from this photo.

Simon; I had first inquired from Rich about help & he stated it had come from China & he had no wiring diagrams for it, so he told me to send it back to him & he could fix it. I could do that but then I don't learn anything, but I may have too if I can't figure it out.

Thanks for the post!

John; here are some photos of the reverse side. I have no idea what t all means.

Thanks a lot!

I'm going to take a stab and say that 2 of the leads (usually red/black) should go to a bridge rectifier, which is one of the black phenolic boxes on the other side of the board from where the wires attach. If you are really lucky, the rectifier may be marked with a ~, +, - where the leads enter it. "~ "is AC. Those 2 leads go to the track. It does not matter which is center rail. "+ and -" feed to the circuit board.

The other 2 wire leads should be attached to the output of the board circuitry. These will be the moter leads. Which goes on which terminal on the motor depends on which way you want the engine to go on start up.

Time to get the magnifying glass out. Good luck!

Chris

LVHR

One thing at a time.  Obviously missing one red wire off the back of the board. There also apears to be some circuit trace heat damage lower right of board. My board is upside down from your picture.

It also appears that the track pick-up wires and the motor feed wires are all spliced together.  This is not good.   This might account for the circuit board trace damage note above.

It's clear it's not wired correctly, and that's the issue.  They may well have toasted the motor control board with that rig.

I think Chris has the right idea, if you can identify the stuff he mentioned.  There are only four active wires you need to have.

The motors could be in series or parallel, it's hard to say since the wiring is all screwed up.  It sort of looks like they might have been wired in series at one time.  This gives you better low speed performance but not as much high-end speed or pulling power.

You may have to make Mike a deal on his board, because there's a good chance yours may be history after that wiring job.

Motors were wired parallel from Rich Yoder.
(1.)  There should be two wires hooked to the frame of each truck. Wire them together with a short third wire lead to be attach to the E-board.  That would be track common or the outside rails.
(2.)  There should be two wires one from each third rail pick-up. Wire them together with a short third wire lead to be attached to the E-board.  That would be track power, center rail.
(3.)  You should be able to see a red dot on each motor.  One red dot wire from the motor to one not so red dot wire from the other motor and a short lead to the E-board.   Do this twice.  Reason for doing this is the design.  One motor has to be turning clockwise while the other counterclockwise to be in sink with each other. Since the unit is apart, you can check this by spinning the flywheels. I could be wrong and often am.  You want all (4)Axles/(8) wheels to be turning in the same direction.
That should give you (4) wire leads.  (2) for track power into the E- board and (2) for DC power to motors.  Now you are hooking (4) wires to the E-board and we are all clueless as to which wire goes where.  I suggest Rich Yoder's help at this point. If you need my E-board let me know, I can mail it no charge.

ERR replacement is tough.  Small space and limited parts available.  At the time several years ago ERR had a Beep commander board that I used which is no longer available. There was also a TAS small board that would work, it's no longer available. A quick review of the ERR website shows a Mini Commander 2 with a 2" X 1" X .65" foot print.

Mike; thanks again for all the help & yes I will take that E-board; I believe my address is on my profile. I have to run out now but I have some more tests to try, so I will let u know what is happening when I get back to it.

Thanks again everbody!

If I actually saw that electronic reverse unit, I could tell you where the wires should be wired.  If you're energetic, you can mail it to me and I'll sort it out and send it on with a diagram of how to wire it.

John; I am sorry but I am unsure of what the electronic reverse unit is? If it is what I think it is I will surely send it to u & appreciate some type of schematic to go with it!

The electronic reverse unit is the board we've been discussing.

If you get the other one, before you connect any wires to it, that's the one that would be most useful to see, as we are pretty sure it's still functional.  The one you have may be functional, but having applied voltage to who knows what connections, it's hard to say what damage has been done to that one.

Mike in step # 3, u mention, Do this twice; what exactly does this mean? I have completed steps 1. to 3., with the exception of the e board wires. When I place it on the track should it not @ least move in one direction. It doesn't do anything, not even hum.

Thanks a lot!

Personally, I'd pretty much start from scratch here.  There are only a handful of wires to do this whole job, I'd get the motor wires free, the pickup and frame wires free, then work from there.

Mike; here s what I have done!

You can connect the two motors to a DC transformer if you desire and see if they're both running so the wheels go the same direction, that would be something to verify.

You do NOT want the motors connected directly to the track pickups as they appear to be.  They will ONLY connect to the reverse board.

Yes.  That should work.  E-board is box and will be in the mail to John. 

Mike

The E-Unit is on it's way to Canada, dropped it off today.

I included a wiring diagram with it.  Here's the wiring diagram, crude but it should do the job.  The wire colors from the reverse board are the ones that are currently on the board.  Click on the graphic to see it full sized.

Did this project ever get completed??

Mike

He got the reverse board, but he said it still didn't work.  Since I know for sure it worked with a DC motor on my bench, I'm at a loss as to what he's seeing.  I wired it exactly like the above diagram.

Bummer,  That's hard to believe he would have fried the motors.  Anything is possible.

Great working with you John:

Mike  

I hope the jury is still out.  Never did hear if the motors ran by themselves.  That would be my first test.

John; I am still working towards a solution. I have recently test the motors with a 9V battery & they are operating just fine in the same direction. I will let the forum know about the finished work when I can get everything properly together. Thanks a lot to all for the great assistance!

If the motors run, I'm at a loss as to why the reverse board won't run them.

The only other control piece (not shown) in any of this discussion is a small constant voltage board that powered the  LED head lights.  The input to this board was powerd off the output of the reverser board. i.e. if the direction of the unit was changed the head light changed. Non of the wiring that William showed included that board.

I used that board on my ERR TMCC upgrade rather than get into the lighting circuits and required resistors for the LED lights, simply hooking the board input as it was originally connected to the output of the reversing board after the upgrade to the ERR board.  It worked for some time but eventually failed.

Mike