Question about locking Lionel General 4-4-0 in forward - conventional operation

Hi Dennis,

If this is a Lionchief 2.0 or 2.0 Plus, then you just missed by one day an extensive discussion of this exact problem.  Just look back over the posts for the last two days.

Mannyrock

It is conventional.  I saw that discussion

I was trying to let others chime in who might have direct experience with this engine, so here is my stab at it.

First, we look up the guts of what you got https://www.lionelsupport.com/...e-Chase-Generals-Set

And we find it's a "low current" electronic E-unit (that name alone bothers me) but is hopefully not the cause.

One possible answer, the lock switch itself, the contacts might not actually be making constant contact and that's how we get a unit that doesn't stay locked.

Or

I do not have experience with that specific low current reverse board to know if this is a systemic problem of the design. The how it stores the state is traditionally a capacitor holding the logic circuit in the previous cycle.

The manual even talks about how the unit will default (when not locked) to forward, and hat's honestly how most electronic E-units work anyway, they use a capacitor to store a charge and eventually it completely discharges and then you are at the beginning of the logic cycle states like a reset.

From the manual https://www.lionelsupport.com/...50LCCA440General.pdf

So now we are at the conclusion side of this, and being 2 engines do it, they both have the same board, so either they got a set of bad switches, or we just ran smack into a "design constraint "(yeah, that's what well call it) of that E unit.

I doubt you have 2 bad E-units as that board clearly has solid state capacitors which are pretty reliable. So then that puts us at wiring up a bridge rectifier to the motor and calling it good. Heck in theory, one could find the points on that board and use the board rectifier bypassing the reversing output.

Vernon,

Thank you for your detailed analysis !

Do you think replacing the low current board with this would fix the problem, assuming it would fit.  If is difficult to tell whether they are the same size?

Dennis

I think I have one of those boards. Let me test it first. I don't want to say it fixes the problem, you spend the money and it doesn't fix the problem.

Darn it. I thought maybe I had the high current version you linked. Nope, I have the lower current version similar but not the same exact one you have in your engine 691-EUN1-A00. This came out of a Polar Express Freight engine 6-30184 https://www.lionelsupport.com/...Loco-Only-6108768001

And the problem here is, Lionel parts is listing the newer A01 board you have in your engines as a replacement, so I'm not testing apples to apples. Testing this board, at least on the bench worked in direction lock but I don't know how to specify you would get this exact version of board.

I would hope the high current board works, it's higher current rated so this in theory is a better safety margin in case of a stalled or high load motor condition, and most important, it "should" work -and by work, I mean specifically direction lock works and is not "wonky". But not having one on hand or in any engine I have handy to test before I tell you it is good before you go buying 2 of them.

I'm still at wondering if you have a bad lock switch? Since you had the engine open, what if you soldered the 2 leads to the lockout switch together? Just trying to eliminate the cheap easy fix first.

Thank you for all your help Vernon!  I will test bypassing the switch and keep you posted!

Dennis