Does anyone have this or know about its operation. I'm being told that all three have to be tethered together to run. A runs by itself but B and 2nd A won't. Does that seem right?
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Do they all run when tethered together? I seem to remember that each truck has a small DC motor, for a total of six. They run fast with very little slow speed control.
Not in my possession. Will run with all three. The info on lack of slow speed control gives me pause if I were to buy. Suppose to be able to pull 125 cars. If I could run with two I could be interested.
Yes I would find out if the can motor is in the trucks, like Lionel starter set diesels. Or if the motors are separate from the trucks.
FWIW, there were at least a few of those truck mounted K-Line ABA F3's sold with aftermarket TMCC installed by Emery Distributors in Easton, Pennsylvania. They were having a hard time getting them out of the warehouse so they upgraded them to sell more easily.
Fred
gunrunnerjohn posted:The can motors are not in the trucks on those, they're China drive vertical motors. The electronics is in the lead unit, the remaining units won't run by themselves. It's also not really possible to equip these with cruise as the Cruise Commander doesn't do six motors. It's hit or miss with four motors, and I took one of these sets and made the B unit a dummy to use the Cruise Commander M for speed control.
You could use a Cruise Commander if the motors were wired in series/parallel. By that I mean each unit had its motors wired in series and all three units wired in parallel to each other. That would present itself to the Cruise Commander as the current draw of three motors.
When I abuse Cruise Commanders by adding more than two motors, I install a heat sink on the bridge rectifier and a small computer fan blowing on the rectifier and output transistors.
I have this set. They are truckmounted motors. In fact I’ve collected all of these k-line aba sets. There are better things out there but for the money I think they’re great.
I have the PRR version on the set. They did run fast until I rewired them.....add 30 cars and you have a great 'conventional' runner.....
The price should be a clue. The china drive units made in the 2000's usually sell for more especially from this dealer. The ones made in the '90s with truck mounted motors are not as highly valued. I don't think they share many if any parts. Similar to Lionel's traditional line and full scale line.
Pete
NIB $299. China drive, truck mounted, rewiring? Beyond what I understand
Sounds to much of a power beast for my needs.
Thanks for everyone's insight.
I have the six motor set in Santa Fe. Note that K-line made A-B-A sets in both 4-motor and 6-motor versions. All units run off of a single TMCC board in the lead unit. I have pulled 11 K-line 21" aluminum passenger cars with this set. That was probably not a good idea, but somehow the TMCC board handled the load. To be safe, I should probably rewire the units in series/parallel as Royboy suggested.
Bob Glorioso
I've had several of the A-B-A sets, all were China drive. I didn't realize they came with the truck mounted motors. FWIW, I'd pass on those, they usually have all plastic gears and they're less than robust!
