Reversing Relay

Thanks Rob.  I read that.  I was hoping for thoughts on this product from anyone who may be familiar with it.  

"Would anyone know anything about this relay ?"

I have never seen one, nor have I ever heard of one.  I can tell you that it won't work, as diagrammed or described in the auction.  

A toy train that uses a 4-position E-unit to switch from forward to reverse requires two power interruptions to cycle the E-unit.  The circuit as shown does not appear to interrupt track power more than once per cycle.

It might work on a train that has the later, cheapened, 2-position E-unit.  But those trains were problematical in practice, slamming immediately from forward to reverse without a neutral position. if the white device is a timer, then the slamming might not be so dramatic. 

There is no such thing as a 3-position E-unit. So, I guess it's only useful for a train with a 2-position E-unit.

Considering the sloppy soldering job, the grammatical errors, and the less-than complete description, I would advise moving on.

Arthur P. Bloom posted:

There is no such thing as a 3-position E-unit...

 

If you're throwing vernacular out the window, then we'd better call it what it is.

It's a 8 position DPDT center off sequencing relay. "on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off"

I've asked the seller for more information in the form of reviews or references.  Haven't heard back from him.  Re-reading the instruction sheet, he talks about a 2 or 3 position E unit.  I've always thought Lionel made two types of E units, a 3 position and a 2 position.  In all of the technical information I've read from Lionel, that is how they differentiate them.  The former, as we all know is, Forward-Neutral-Reverse, while the latter is Forward-Reverse.

The instructions, then, can be misleading. 

Rob, the E-units with which I am familiar go through 4 steps, not 8.  Forward, neutral, reverse, neutral, then start over again at forward.  

There are no known 3-position E-units. One of those, if it were to exist, would have Forward, Neutral, Reverse, then start over again immediately with Forward.

There are the 2-position E-units that only have forward and reverse.  I'm with Arthur, I've never heard of a true 3 three position one.  I'm pretty sure the folks that talk about three position E-Units are talking about the traditional one that has four steps, F-N-R-N...

gunrunnerjohn posted:

There are the 2-position E-units that only have forward and reverse.  I'm with Arthur, I've never heard of a true 3 three position one.  I'm pretty sure the folks that talk about three position E-Units are talking about the traditional one that has four steps, F-N-R-N...

Precisely John.  It's a matter of semantics I suppose.  I had a look at my "Complete Service manual For Lionel Trains"  printed by K-Line in 1978.  On page 231 they talk about E-units and Two position E-units.  So to get technical, there is no such thing as either a three or four position E-unit.  

"So to get technical, there is no such thing as either a three or four position E-unit. "

Can you describe for me the three steps? I'm confused. I have never owned a Lionel loco that went "Forward, neutral, reverse, forward, neutral, reverse, etc."

For those not yet understand those of us who may be confused or using the incorrect terminology, here are the three steps;

FORWARD-NEUTRAL-REVERSE

The next three steps would be;

NEUTRAL-FORWARD-NEUTRAL

Now, depending on where you left off when you turned your track power off, the first step could be any one of the three steps above.  

So to go through and entire sequence we would have the following.  I'll start the loco in Forward for the sake of simplicity.

FORWARD-NEUTRAL-REVERSE-NEUTRAL-FORWARD

Looks like five steps to me in order to get back to forward.....LOL

These forums are supposed to be fun, just as our hobby is.  Let's just be open minded to those of us who don't know all of the correct terms.  Or as my grandmother used to say, "Throw me down the stairs the towel".

I just had a brain awakening.  I recall, many years ago, changing a 3 position E-unit to a two position or vice-versa.  At the moment I cannot remember which one can be altered into the other type.  

Dan Padova posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

There are the 2-position E-units that only have forward and reverse.  I'm with Arthur, I've never heard of a true 3 three position one.  I'm pretty sure the folks that talk about three position E-Units are talking about the traditional one that has four steps, F-N-R-N...

Precisely John.  It's a matter of semantics I suppose.  I had a look at my "Complete Service manual For Lionel Trains"  printed by K-Line in 1978.  On page 231 they talk about E-units and Two position E-units.  So to get technical, there is no such thing as either a three or four position E-unit.  

1961 Hillside New Jersey... The Lionel Corp. describes it's own equipment erroneously:

1958 Lionel 41, 42, 51, 53 & 56 switchers:

If you are going to be precise, the E-unit drum is 8 position, not 4.

I just had a brain awakening.  I recall, many years ago, changing a 3 position E-unit to a two position or vice-versa.  At the moment I cannot remember which one can be altered into the other type.  

Engines with 2 position e-units can be converted to 3 position e-units. Lionel published instructions in their service station manual. When doing the conversion, the 3 position e-unit is installed just as it would be in an engine that came with one, using only one of the two fields. The second field is unused, and left disconnected. I believe they advised cutting the wires to the second field, but I never did. I just tucked the end out of the way.

As far as the discussion of three position versus four position.
The original description of the e-units in the factory service manual stated they were four position switches, with two complete cycles occurring in one rotation of the drum.
Later documentation called them 3-postion e-units.

Why three? ...... because there are three outcomes: forward, neutral, and reverse.
In my experience it is very rare to see them described as anything other than three position.

Or maybe Lionel et al should have called the E units 2 function (forward-reverse) and 3 function (forward-neutral-reverse). Position denotes drum/lever position or electronics switching, without describing end action occurring, while function denotes what action occurred without regards to the mechanical/electronics position creating this action, 

Belaboring the obvious, you have an multi position accessory switch on layout.  Its FUNCTION is to supply operation power, but does not tell anything about its positions.  Likewise each POSITION turned to operates that one accessory, but how it happens does not describe the function of how power got to the accessory.

But maybe you English majors might not split hairs like I do, in my engineering mind.

ADCX Rob posted:

If you are going to be precise, the E-unit drum is 8 position, not 4.

That thought crossed my mind, but I decided not to further muddy the waters.

Thanks John.  My brain is muddy enough as it is.....LOL

To Mr Burfle, I saw your reply but for some reason it was not on the thread, so don't know if you purposely deleted it or was censored or Hoopla is slow posting it, but wanted to respond before this old head forgets.  Certainly agree each specialty has its own dialect and shorthand, which makes things more interesting.  And as been said if you can't shine with brilliance, dazzle them with .....!  Anyway a great comment.

Your reply:

Belaboring the obvious, you have an multi position accessory switch on layout.  Its FUNCTION is to supply operation power, but does not tell anything about its positions.  Likewise each POSITION turned to operates that one accessory, but how it happens does not describe the function of how power got to the accessory.

But maybe you English majors might not split hairs like I do, in my engineering mind.

But you are applying Engineering terminology  to plain English.
I found that even within the field of IT, the same term sometimes meant something different to people with different specialties. Each specialty group had their own language.