Lionel vs. MTH Tenders?

You cannot run the MTH loco without its tender, as that's where its main electronics are located.

Stuart

I'm fairly certain you will get the correct advise from the Forum participants.  I don't believe it's a good idea to do this.  I think you may be inviting a disaster of epic proportion.  

Thanks for the advice.  This gets back to the unwanted electronics problem, and the

lack of separate sale tenders, not to mention, compatibility.  Since I used to use QSI reversing components in old (and not so old) powered units...wouldn't an MTH unit with one of those tenders replaced with another, but not connected by wire, work if it had a QSI or whatever reverse unit installed?  It has a motor in the loco body, and is not tender drive like some old HO.  Anything in the loco body that is electronic and not related to the motor could be disconnected or removed?

I guess it all depends on which loco/tenders you plan to mix and match. 

I think all MTH locos carry all the electronics in the tender. 

Most Lionel locos carry some electronics in the loco with the sound units and other parts in the tender. 

My suggestion is, once you decide on your loco-tender combo, remove all the electronics from both pieces, then install whatever reverse unit/control system you like in the tender and make your own tether to the motor in the locomotive. 

I also suggest that you edit the title of this thread to something more specific about what you are trying to do. Such as:

"Mixing Lionel/MTH locos and tenders"

You might get more responses that way. 

So is MTH the Palestinians and Lionel the Israelis?

 Or is it the other way around?

Smaller Lionel steamers typically have their electronics "distributed" and connected

by a hardwire tether. The Lionel IR "non-tether-tether" is a data link and sends no

power back and forth, other than that required for communication.

If you have a 4-pin land-line tether you have 2 DC pins from the reversing unit and 2

AC pins from the track. (If you have more than 4 pins on your tethers, and one is Lionel

and one is MTH, well, good luck with that.)

If the tender and loco have the DC and AC Hot and AC Common (careful, here) pins in the same locations, and the tethers are physically compatible-ish, plug it in and go. It's

just AC in and DC out. Your DC motor may or may not start in Forward right off the bat.

Wires can be moved around on one of the tethers to make them electrically compatible

if you need.

How do I know? I've done it. I obtained last year a 3rd Rail tender-less UP Mikado and

wanted to test it. I traced the circuits on it and an old Williams brass Southern tender

and found that they were the same. (This is typical, actually.) So, I ran my UP 3rd Rail Mike in front of a green

Southern Williams (Samhongsa) tender. Looked weird; ran fine.

Thanks OGR Webmaster......

You should've seen it before it was Lionel vs MTH!

I did...

I have encountered a lack of sense of humor on here before, when I mentioned

common comments from the old Little Abner and Daisy Mae comics, so am not

surprised my title exemplifying bitter antagonists was misinterpreted as "political",

even though they appear in the daily news, and SHOULD have been easy to understand

as representing antagonism and lack of compatibility, as, say, citing "Ford vs. Chevrolet" might have.  I don't have a dog in that political fight; I do have dog in the fight to get what I want.  Thanks to those who understood that and gave very good

advice in response.

"Ford vs. Chevrolet"

Your analogy is inappropriate.

Ford and Chevrolet don't generally enter into activities where the objective is to kill each other's employees, and neither do MTH and Lionel.

Don't do it.  As others pointed out, MTH locos won't work without their electronics, which are in their tender.  Most Lionel locos will run without theirs (just not make sound), but MTH just sit there, even in conventional, and act dump because without their tender, they are.  

If you want to swap tenders on an MTH or Lionel loco with one from the other company, then you really need to move all the electronics.  If you are up to that, fine . . .  but if not, don't even start down that road, as it will only be a non-starter. 

I've done tender swaps like this twice.  It involves a good deal of work moving all the electronics and sometimes a lot of other bother - you really have to want to do it, and there has to be some really good pay back to justify all the work involved.  

There is a little bit of misinformation in these post, but the basic tenant of DON'T DO it stands.

First depending on model of MTH (PS-1, PS-2 5V, PS-2 3V) determines where the electronics are.  There are plenty of PS-2 5V steam engines (including Starter sets) with the electronic in the engine, and only speaker and battery in the tender.  This is also why mixing and matching MTH tenders is a No No unless you know how they are wired.

Second, MTH Converts AC to DC and all the components run on DC ( with the exception of Couplers on PS-1).  Lionel uses AC to drive circuits on the TMCC engines.  So you have a miss match in how the units operate.

Third wiring conventions can be different.   G

Disconnect the tender wiring, jumper the pins on the rear of the engine so the pickups go to one side of the motor and the frame/drivers go to the other side of the motor, and run the engine using a DC power pack.  Of course all you'll have is speed control (no lights or sound) but the train will move by rotating the knob on the power pack.

I did this on my Williams USRA 2-8-2 and Weaver 4-6-0 prior to adding PS2 and they ran well.  I used jumpers like those on the rear of a computer hard drive.

If you can workout a swap of the tender bodies only without affecting the electronics, your idea would work.