Can I cut off the end of the Lionel Lionchief 72W wall pack power supply and solder onto underside of track?

You could but but you would be better off adding a plug socket such as an adapter terminal and solder those wires to the track.

You can crimp some .119 spade terminals to the wire so it is removable as in the regular terminal connection.

Brendan

Awesome, that's what I want to do - solder it to the track....this is great!  Thanks!  Any suggestions on how to determine which wire is the red one and which is the black one?

@Chris wilson posted:

Awesome, that's what I want to do - solder it to the track....this is great!  Thanks!  Any suggestions on how to determine which wire is the red one and which is the black one?

Use a meter.  The wire with the stripe is "generally" positive.

Brendan

Yes, but ...  direct connection from the wall wart to the track would be without a fuse or circuit breaker for protection of the locomotive circuit board in event of a short caused by a derailment.  The electronics inside the POLAR EXPRESS could be fried very quickly -- before you could reach the loco, remove it from the rails, and re-rail it.  A fast-blow fuse is a lot cheaper than a replacement circuit board!

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394

@Mike H Mottler posted:

Yes, but ...  direct connection from the wall wart to the track would be without a fuse or circuit breaker ...

He's not cutting off any fuse or circuit breaker. The breaker is inside the wall wart.

@Mike H Mottler posted:

...for protection of the locomotive circuit board in event of a short caused by a derailment.  The electronics inside the POLAR EXPRESS could be fried very quickly -- before you could reach the loco, remove it from the rails, and re-rail it.

The wall wart has no protection for this kind of damage, so cutting the connector off will have no effect on transient voltage suppression.

I also expanded my Polar Express set, but as I’ve been adding a lot, simply went with the 180 Brick and wired it in directly to a 10” piece of Fasttrack.  Less than $1 for the molex connector pieces.  Can run several lighted cars and numerous plug and play items, and got a great circuit breaker built in.

Old thread….sorry for the resurrection….but my question is I have a Lionel 72 W DC LionChief wall wart that I want to wire directly into a power distribution block for multiple Plug Expand Play accessories that run fine on DC.  

I have been using the Lionel Fastrack with the three accessory points 6-81314 and just a ton of plug explained play three port expansion boxes. Works great but it is more for temporary set up. And those boxes are bulky and always in the way.

I’m thinking I just snip the male plug off….find out which is positive and negative and wire those into a standard power distribution block.

Do you guys see any problems with this?

John,

I do not see any problem with taking the plug off. The old answers from above show electric plug adapters that might keep everything original if that is important to you.

Carl J

@johnrr6 posted:

Old thread….sorry for the resurrection….but my question is I have a Lionel 72 W DC LionChief wall wart that I want to wire directly into a power distribution block for multiple Plug Expand Play accessories that run fine on DC.  

I have been using the Lionel Fastrack with the three accessory points 6-81314 and just a ton of plug explained play three port expansion boxes. Works great but it is more for temporary set up. And those boxes are bulky and always in the way.

I’m thinking I just snip the male plug off….find out which is positive and negative and wire those into a standard power distribution block.

Do you guys see any problems with this?

I use PDB's with a female barrel connector, then you don't need to cut any thing.  Also, if you have an old 54w adapter from a starter set or some other wall wart, use that for your accessories and leave the 72w for track only.

@fgnewton posted:

I use PDB's with a female barrel connector, then you don't need to cut any thing.  Also, if you have an old 54w adapter from a starter set or some other wall wart, use that for your accessories and leave the 72w for track only.

Thanks! I like that power distro board with the female Barrel Connector...simple.  Do you have a source?  Are the Lionel Barrel Connectors on their wall warts a standard size??

The Lionel Ready to Run Lion Chief type DC wall warts' barrel connectors are 2.5mm ID, 5.5mm OD.

@johnrr6 posted:

Thanks! I like that power distro board with the female Barrel Connector...simple.  Do you have a source?  Are the Lionel Barrel Connectors on their wall warts a standard size??

Oops, SteveH is right the Lionel barrel are 2.5mm on the on the inner part while the one I showed you is 2.1mm (I use it for accessories with a old 2.1 wall wart I have laying around)  for the Lionel wall wart I just ended up using a 2.5 connector.

The Board: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/pr...le?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The 2.5 connector I used with Lionel wall wart: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/pr...tle?ie=UTF8&th=1