Regulating voltage on CW-80

Your description seems to indicate it's not right.  Does it operate a train on the track correctly?  Or is the problem just on the accessory side?  Here is the page out of the manual for setting the accessory voltage. If it needs repair, it may be cheaper to buy a good used one.

I'm doing exactly how the manual states and no matter how slowly I raise the handle the voltage jumps from 3-18v and vice versa. 

The transformer operates my lionchief train and lighted accessories just fine from the track side hookup.

Guess I'm no help. Have to wait for the experts to chime in.  I did find this thread that may give you more information

CW80 - 2012

Don't know if this helps you or not, but here's how the CW-80 is wired.  Click on the diagram to expand it.  A good start would be to check/replace the components in the red rectangle, those are the unique parts that set the accessory voltage.  I'm assuming that the track voltage works normally.  If those parts don't affect it, I suspect the uP port driving them has a problem, that's "lights-out" for that board if so.

Ok looks like I have to run to harbor freight and pick up one of those triangle screwdrivers and start poking around.

I was going to buy another one on eBay just for accessories and the seller told me that the voltage wasn't adjustable on his either and stayed at about 9-10v. So I'm wondering if this is a widespread problem of this transformer?

Are you comfortable poking around with a voltmeter inside a "live" CW-80 using the schematic diagram GRJ shows above?  Note from previous threads there are different revisions of the CW-80 so confirm we're on the same page. 

Since the track side output works, as GRJ suggests take at the highlighted components.  Here' s that schematic with additional troubleshooting info.

Once you get it open, if you want to proceed, we can suggest specific points in the circuit to measure and what to look for.

Good find Stan, I forgot that existed.  The good news is, there's only 20 volts AC anywhere in the circuitry he's having to probe.

I guess it really depends on how delicate of soldering is involved. I have have a cheap 40 or 60 watt Craftsman and every time I try to solder small items I want to rip my hair out.

The tip never gets hot enough to melt the solder so I have to solder higher on the tip which doesn't work well and I usually end up with very bad solder joints. My harbor freight one was the same way.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Good find Stan, I forgot that existed.  The good news is, there's only 20 volts AC anywhere in the circuitry he's having to probe.

That's good, I've been zapped too many times playing with electricity, from installing new lines at home to getting it the worst by touching something in my home PC power supply and the darn thing wouldn't let my hand go, lol.

Babajaga posted:

I guess it really depends on how delicate of soldering is involved. I have have a cheap 40 or 60 watt Craftsman and every time I try to solder small items I want to rip my hair out.

The tip never gets hot enough to melt the solder so I have to solder higher on the tip which doesn't work well and I usually end up with very bad solder joints. My harbor freight one was the same way.

Time to buy a decent soldering iron.  I personally think quality tools are well worth the investment, and I use the Hakko FX-888D and I highly recommend it.  I solder surface mount components with it all the time.  With temperature control and 70 watts of power, it'll handle most wiring jobs except for really large stuff.

I sprung for the Hakko FG-100 Calibrator as well.

Yeah it's time for sure, thanks for the recommendation. I've had the hardest time picking one out because the reviews on eBay or Amazon for soldering irons were so mixed that I didn't bother.

And now that I'm tending to buy untested/broken accessories to repair it will be nice having one that actually works.

Plus one on the Hakko. Fast to temp, adjustable very nice.  BTW there's a statment in Stan's document that you might check

"Voltage isn’t really locked in until control lever is returned to cutoff position, at

which time the output will spike to full voltage, then settle back to the

programmed value."

You will not be unhappy with the Hakko, I love mine.  It's a model that tons of companies buy as well, and anyone I know that has one likes it a bunch.  Tips are plentiful for any task you need to tackle from fine needle-point to large chisel tips.

TedW posted:

Plus one on the Hakko. Fast to temp, adjustable very nice.  BTW there's a statment in Stan's document that you might check

"Voltage isn’t really locked in until control lever is returned to cutoff position, at

which time the output will spike to full voltage, then settle back to the

programmed value."

I did see that but I may have been impatient and overlooked that while trying to adjust voltage. I will give it another shot and see what happens.

Edit... No luck, still no voltage other than 3 or 18. Sometimes even if I set the voltage at the lowest when my meter stops fluctuating and I return the handle all the way down after I let go of the buttons it'll still jump back to 18.

One more for the Hakko FX-888D.  I finally broke down and bought one a 2 or 3 years ago and couldn't be happier with it (my solder joints really like it as well). I was finally persuaded from reading posts about them right here on the forum. A year or so later, after more posts right here, I also got the Calibrator for it. Also as GRJ said, a very good item to have.

Babajaga posted:

Ok looks like I have to run to harbor freight and pick up one of those triangle screwdrivers and start poking around.

I was going to buy another one on eBay just for accessories and the seller told me that the voltage wasn't adjustable on his either and stayed at about 9-10v. So I'm wondering if this is a widespread problem of this transformer?

Since when does Harbor Freight have triangle screwdrivers?  I have looked before.

I don't know, I was just guessing. Lol

Do all of the buttons work when you are using track power? I have had problems with the buttons before

The direction button works and so does the whistle. The train doesn't have a bell so I can't test that button. When I do press all three buttons the light does flash as it should though, so I assume the buttons work.

I was going to buy another CW-80 strictly for accessories and keep this one just for track power but now I'm not sure if I should. Obviously mine is not the only one with this problem and buying one off eBay or a train show is a gamble now because I might get another broken one. Everytime I email the seller to ask if the accessory voltage adjustment works they either don't know or don't want to test it.

Are there any decent brand new budget AC/DC transformers that provide a decent amount of watts and track power as well as an accessory hookup with adjustable voltage? I was looking at the Tech 2 railpower which retail around $20.

Have you given up on trying to repair it?  If you see your way to finding the correct screwdriver bit and a decent soldering iron you might get lucky and find it's a defective 3-terminal triac (one of the components in GRJ's red box) which can be replaced with modest effort/cost.

When you say "budget AC/DC transformer" are you saying your accessories run on DC voltage (most do)?  If so, you can find very economical DC output power sources.  Note the Tech II Railpower 1400 is spec'd at 13VA which for comparison purpose is 13 Watts which is rather anemic for O-gauge applications. 

If you can use DC, here's a 90 Watt supply that goes for between $5-10 shipped on eBay (search for 90W Universal laptop charger).  This one has a selector slide switch to change the output voltage from 12 to 24V DC in 7 steps with LED selection indicator.

Note that it's generally much easier to convert from one DC voltage to another DC voltage - vs. AC-to-another AC votlage - for fine-tuning accessories that respond to voltage changes.  It's true though that with these low-cost DC supplies (look for 10 cents per Watt or less) from the PC/computer industry you generally have to mess with connectors/wiring whereas a train transformer typically comes with color-coded red/black banana jacks or clearly labeled + and - screw-terminals.

No, I actually ordered a screwdriver online so just waiting for it to ship. I'll definitely get that soldering iron, just might have to wait a bit because I have a few other things to purchase first.

Anyways, I was going to get a second controller no matter what because I need to be able to use the track side voltage control for accessories without it interfering with the train operation.

I don't think my accessories run on DC but maybe they do. Right now I have an MTH operating passenger station, K-Line smoking diner, Lionel Milk car and horse corral on the way. I also plan on getting a Lionel log loader and some Menards buildings which come with their own power supplies. I do have some 12v power supplies lying around but the passenger station and diner need at least 14v so I would probably need to order a selectable power supply like you have if they can run on DC.

I'm just keying off your term "budget".

Someone will correct me if the CW-80 is different, but for transformers of this ilk the 80 Watt rating applies to the sum of the accessory power and the train/track-side power.  The point being if you can buy fixed-voltage output power for 10 cents per Watt  to power your accessories, it seems there are opportunities to manage your cost-power budget since variable-voltage output power from train manufacturers tends to run around $1 per Watt.

You are correct on the 80W total output power Stan, not that you expected to be wrong.

stan2004 posted:

I'm just keying off your term "budget".

Someone will correct me if the CW-80 is different, but for transformers of this ilk the 80 Watt rating applies to the sum of the accessory power and the train/track-side power.  The point being if you can buy fixed-voltage output power for 10 cents per Watt  to power your accessories, it seems there are opportunities to manage your cost-power budget since variable-voltage output power from train manufacturers tends to run around $1 per Watt.

I would like to spend around $50 max. So far it looks like the Mth operating station can use DC, and in the K-line diner manual it doesn't mention whether DC or AC so I would imagine both are fine?

What about Lionel 364 log loader, and horse corral. Can I power those using DC?

 I looked at those generic laptop power supplies and I'll probably grab myself one. I did notice though that they all skip over 14v which I was hoping to run at, guess I'll have to go to 15 which hopefully won't produce an overload of smoke out of the diner.

I don't have your specific accessories to confirm which operate OK on DC.  But those that use a vibrating-motor to shake a platform on which animals or whatever move clearly need AC.  Another DIY option is to use a fixed-output AC brick and drop the voltage in increments using a string of diodes or bridge-rectifiers; here's a link to a recent thread describing this.

BTW you mentioned buying broken accessories to repair them.  If this is something you like to do I'd be curious to see if you could replace a broken AC vibrating motor with a DC can motor with an eccentric weight on the shaft.  This of course is what vibrates in a pager/mobile phone.  For example my model-paint bottle mixer is battery operated driving a DC motor with an unbalanced weight.

stan2004 posted:

I don't have your specific accessories to confirm which operate OK on DC.  But those that use a vibrating-motor to shake a platform on which animals or whatever move clearly need AC.  Another DIY option is to use a fixed-output AC brick and drop the voltage in increments using a string of diodes or bridge-rectifiers; here's a link to a recent thread describing this.

BTW you mentioned buying broken accessories to repair them.  If this is something you like to do I'd be curious to see if you could replace a broken AC vibrating motor with a DC can motor with an eccentric weight on the shaft.  This of course is what vibrates in a pager/mobile phone.  For example my model-paint bottle mixer is battery operated driving a DC motor with an unbalanced weight.

 

Sounds like an interesting project, I do have several small DC motors laying around that I use to build dosing pumps and those would probably work.

Obviously I'd have to get a great deal on the accessory, the cost of materials would have to be a lot less than a working unit off eBay. I recently purchased an untested Starlight Diner for $55 and all it ended up needing was a new heating element, I thought that was a pretty good deal since it cost me $6 in parts whereas I saw working ones on eBay for $80+.

Before you go investing in another CW80 for another power supply, or even investing the time and money repairing the one you have, I will share that the name CW80 and doorstop have been used in the same sentence many times on this here forum.  (Do you really want two of those annoying fans going?). There are options, just sayin.

William 1 posted:

Before you go investing in another CW80 for another power supply, or even investing the time and money repairing the one you have, I will share that the name CW80 and doorstop have been used in the same sentence many times on this here forum.  (Do you really want two of those annoying fans going?). There are options, just sayin.

I don't think I'll be getting another one after one poster above pointed out those $10 generic power supplies.

You're right though, the fan is annoying and I was looking at buying an MTH Z series but got this one basically for free so I'm using it instead.

Free is good.  Everybody likes the word free.  A free doorstop is better than buying a second one.  That advice is no charge.  Cheers.

You bet, I don't need 2 door stops