Electrical question on the Menard 3.5 Beta and the fast start- could wiring the motors in series fix this?

Series wiring of the two non flywheel motors will calm down most overly fast locos. I've done this many times with consistent results. With very little difference reported between the four groups so far, why call them betas?

Here is another review of the 3.0 noting the same start up issue - check at 12 minutes or so.

I have wired many K-line and William's engines in series.

I have the original Menards engine, sounds like a weekend project. I will post the results here. Certainly won't do anything for the hard starts but worth a shot.....👍

Bob

@RSJB18 just checking to see if you had a chance to try the series motors. If not I should have time tomorrow to give it a shot.

@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 just checking to see if you had a chance to try the series motors. If not I should have time tomorrow to give it a shot.

I did not. Was busy with snow removal all weekend.

I get the snow issue and fortunately my part of the world, more or less, dodged the bullet. I will try it in the morning and take a video to see what we think is the net effect. 

Putting the motors in series is a big improvement.  Slow speed start and running is much better plus no worry at the top end that a grandchild is going to send it into space.

Here is the after and before, I used wago nuts on the blue and white wires to the motors.

After:

Here are the videos.  the first is the slow speed start up and the second is 80% throttle.

@hokie71 posted:

Putting the motors in series is a big improvement.  Slow speed start and running is much better plus no worry at the top end that a grandchild is going to send it into space.

WOW! That's a huge improvement. Guess I know what my next project will be.

What voltage were you running at?

Bob

@hokie71 Does this accurately display what you have done?

Please excuse the rudimentary artwork, but I am hoping it can help me understand better. 

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

@TheRambles yes, it is easy to find the blue and white wires, since they have a plug on the main board you can trace them. The white wire connecting the two wagos was added and connects the snipped blue on one motor and white on the other

@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

@TheRambles yes, it is easy to find the blue and white wires, since they have a plug on the main board you can trace them. The white wire connecting the two wagos was added and connects the snipped blue on one motor and white on the other

Thank you @hokie71 . This change seems to make these Loco's much less loco if you know what I mean. I, too, use a 180 Watt Powerhouse and as shipped, these fly even at the lowest settings. Thanks again for sharing.

As far as I recall, there are no dual motor engines shipped from the factory wired in series. My experience with rewiring parallel wired motors to series has been positive. Of course, this is not an appropriate wiring change for metered flywheel equipped motors.

@BOB WALKER posted:

As far as I recall, there are no dual motor engines shipped from the factory wired in series. My experience with rewiring parallel wired motors to series has been positive. Of course, this is not an appropriate wiring change for metered flywheel equipped motors.

K line had a series parallel switch on some of their locos.

I series wire everything that can be done.

@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

@TheRambles yes, it is easy to find the blue and white wires, since they have a plug on the main board you can trace them. The white wire connecting the two wagos was added and connects the snipped blue on one motor and white on the other

I run my KW at 10v and its manageable but series is much better.

Now I have a question ? do you think A second unit can be linked  via a tether  so both units 4 motors can be run off of  1 receiver board?

With the parallel to series conversion originally discussed here and demonstrated by @hokie71 (thank you for the proof of concept and great job!), the electrical load of the motors on the motor driver board has been divided by 4 from the original configuration.

@Dave Koehler posted:

Now I have a question ? do you think A second unit can be linked  via a tether  so both units 4 motors can be run off of  1 receiver board?

In theory this new proposed arrangement should work with each pair of motors wired in series and each series pair wired together in parallel across the driver outputs.

In this dual loco MU arrangement, the combined electrical motor load on a single motor driver board's output would be half that of the factory motor wiring configuration.

I would speculate that with this alternate series/parallel arrangement, that the relative speed of the consist may increase somewhat over the first series wiring modification discussed above, but still be slower than stock.

thank you Steve

@Dave Koehler posted:

Now I have a question ? do you think A second unit can be linked  via a tether  so both units 4 motors can be run off of  1 receiver board?

Not sure if you were planning to use the same engine, but i have two of the LionChief Santa Fe units and they both respond to one remote.  I reversed the motor plug to the board on one engine so i can run an ABA unit with the second A unit backwards.

Steve, Tony      My intention  was to run them i an A A configuration  With the board and remote of the lead unit controlling both , with the second unit  holding the battery pack powering  both from the second unit.

Dave, unless i am missing something, these units don’t have batteries.  Any two of the same engines can be controlled by one remote.  They don’t have to be tethered together.

Maybe a BPRC (Battery powered remote control) modification?  Removing the control board in one of the locos would free up a fair amount of space in it for a battery pack.  Interesting idea.

https://ogrforum.com/...74#81959972759768474

Tony  sorry for the confusion, My intension is to either  on track power or Dead  Rail. With cutting DPDT switch  to rout the power. The advantage being I will now operate the train direct in leu of  running the train layout to run the train , like DCC and its variants  With a fraction of the wiring

Steve I was doing it years back In G scale, But there I knew the boards and what they could handle, The Menard's board is an unknown!   And from what I see with the issues with Lionel electronics  have plenty of issues

Although I cannot say for certain, my experience with wireless battery power would suggest that the Menard's engine is a good candidate. On another subject, Lionel's LC+ electronics works beautifully with battery power as was pointed out in a prior forum posting.

I think any of these units with the dedicated remote would probably be easy to convert to battery power.  I know the LC+ Camelback was trivial, and even cheap for the conversion, something like $40 total.

@hokie71 posted:

@RSJB18 that track is about 18 volts. It runs off of a 180 watt powerhouse.

I got my engine re-wired last night. Don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Thanks for kicking my brain into gear.

Both videos at 12 v

@RSJB18 now that’s running much better….some times a swift kick is a good thing.