kline switch question

First did you follow the K-Line wiring diagram? The switch control might be wired wrong as the K-Line switch may look similar to a Lionel switch but it gets wired a little differently.

The problem sounds like the solenoid is receiving power all the time and should not be getting power. Try hooking it up to track power and see what happens.

 

Lee Fritz

I've a few of those.  If you leave them humming, they may burn out.  Do you have insulating pins in the end of the non-derailing tracks? 

Yes I did wire them according to the directions. These switches are new. The middle wire doesn't go to the middle post but to the gr post. Like I said they switched back and forth just great. There is just a somewhat quiet hum coming from them. Also I don't have these hooked up to any track. I was just bench testing these. I used a kline transformer to hook up to the aux power and then touched the transformer ground wire to the center rail of the switch. Sounds as if the solenoid is still powered up or something.

Unless the K-Line switches are totally different from Lionel switches the power or hot goes to the auxiliary power terminal and the negative goes to the outside rail. Have you disconnected the jumper piece from the track power? The other 3 terminal positions are for use with the remote control and should throw the switch when a wire is jumped from the center terminal to the one of the outside terminals.

 

I can look at some K-Line switches I have in O gauge(they are 042 remote) and see if I can find any instructions for them.

 

Lee Fritz

I misspoke, I meant to say i touched the ground wire to the outside rail.  The K-Line switches have an aux power post unlike the lionel switches.  Yes i did swing the jumper plate out of the way and hooked the controller to the other three posts.  Like I mentioned in my earlier post, these are not hooked up to any track, i was just bench testing them. So the insulating pins shouldn't be a concern.  Everything works perfectly, it just has a concerning hum.

Maybe somebody who knows about electronics can help you. It sounds like you may have to a add a diode or a rectifier or something to keep the power constantly away from the solenoid.

 

Lee Fritz

I had a few of these where the bulb in the controller drew enough current through the coil that coil would buzz. Does the coil buzz if you remove the controller bulbs?

I'll have to try that

So I did as suggested and removed the controller bulbs.  Once I did that the buzz went away. I put some LED bulbs in the controller and problem solved.  Only problem I have now is out of the 4 green bulbs I had on hand, 1 didn't work and another burned up within seconds. Too bad I didn't test the LED bulbs when I bought them about a year ago. They're too expensive to be burning up that fast! Thanks everyone for their suggestions. These switches seem like they'll work well.

I had 25 green & 25 red from Town & Country. Every one of the greens blew out. Every one of the reds is working perfectly. Also in K-Line switches(I don't use the controllers).

That's really interesting. Mine were burning up on the switch, not the controller. My red bulbs work just fine as well. I noticed on the green one that burned up that it was flickering and went dim then quit working. The one that was working was getting dimmer as well. Must be a voltage surge or short in the green wiring circuit or something.

Rob, are you talking about LED or incandescent bulbs?

T&C LED bulbs.

 

Once I realized what was happening, I transposed the red & green LEDs, the green ones kept blowing out, just a c.demille describes. It's the bulbs, not the wiring.

So you're talking about T&C green LEDs.  Glad this problem was posted, as I was about to buy some for a layout I'm building for a grandson.

What do you mean you transposed the bulbs? I'm a little slow I guess.

I took the red out of the red socket and the green out of the green socket and put the red in the green socket and the green in the red socket. So now they indicate the wrong direction, but the green ones still blew out exactly the same way.

Did you ever find a bulb that worked? I ordered mine from china. Maybe same brand?

The Chinese/eBay bulbs(green & red) I tried did not survive the 17-18 volt fixed voltage. The red T&C bulbs are still going fine after 5-6 years.

Do they need the 18V to work well?  Can you lower voltage around 14?  I know my motor driven supertrack versions run at lower voltages just fine.  G

I believe they recommend running them between 14 and 16 volts.  That's where I had mine set at and the green bulbs still burned out.

I use a PM-1 135 watt brick for powering the several K-Line solenoid operated switches. There is such a wide variance on their performance(some are the very earliest made, some the very last of this type before going to the low profile motorized versions) that I really need the snap. I have powered them from the B-U posts on a KW and still had bulb problems at lower settings.

Interesting.  I do find some of those Chinese bulb ratings aren't always accurate.  G

So I wanted to give everyone an update on these K-line switch bulbs.  I found a guy named Daniel Maher who hand makes LED bulbs that are properly rated for AC voltage and work great in these K-line switches.  The controller bulbs are round and match the classic bulb shape perfectly.  The switch bayonet bulbs are 10mm LED bulbs and they are a perfect fit under the plastic hood.  Here's his website: http://dansdrumheads.angelfire.com/

 

He has an ebay store as well.  The bulbs are a little pricey but they work and look good.  As I have learned, you need LED bulbs in the controller of these Kline switches to make them work correctly.

I am curious about this - I usually don't use controllers, but when I do, they work fine with the original bulbs. What is the issue you had with the bulbs?

As Mark stated, if I use a normal bulb in the controller my coil buzzes very quietly.  If you weren't listening for it, you could miss the buzz, but its there.  I was worried that the solenoid would burn out if it continually did this.  If you remove the bulb, or use an LED bulb, the buzz goes away.  The switch works just fine with a normal bulb, it just has a buzz/hum to it.  Maybe it wouldn't be a problem in the long run, but a few people have mentioned having solenoids burn up.