What is this board

   Just an observation, but I think you have 5 pads along that edge and only 4 wires there. Does the bare pad have any wire left in it?

    Assuming nobody recognizes it enough to answer better, an antenna lead would not connect to anything else anyhow. So adding an antenna wire to the bare pad, just to check for the signals reception improvements, might work out fine you. No harm if you leave the loose end unconnected. You could try every terminal that way really.

I don't know what you mean by pads and don't see any wire by itself.  They guy took it out of a S gauge engine and said the lites where plugged in and working but didn't remember which socket they where plugged into>>>

Marty

Looks like a motor driver board.  I see four power diodes, four FET drivers, and some opto-isolators.

Since I see the Lionel style connectors, look around very carefully for a part number on the PCB somewhere.

I'd just plug in some 18V bulbs to the various connectors and see which one drives the lights.

Sorry Martin, 

   Where the wires get soldered onto the board; that round section of the metal "trace", that you would solder a wire to, is the pad.

Guessing it's pressboard.

Oh wait, you mean the electronic gizmo? 

I presume the R2LC plugs into that board?  You can find out where the antenna is simply by putting your ohmmeter on pin 23 of that male connector and hunting it down with the other lead.  Similarly, the lights can be located by finding their connections.  Here's the pinout of the R2LC/R4LC boards that presumably plug into that motor driver board.  Lights, couplers, smoke, etc. are all controlled from here.

I could not find any reference number on the bottom of the board, but it does look like it says mighty mite on the back in black, I lifted off some of the sockets and there is nothing by the pins...

Marty

I believe that is a Digital Dynamics board. It's a basic open loop motor driver board for a DC motor using the R2LC PWM off pins 16/18. Probably still works, and works well as they made great stuff. Don't pitch it!

I do believe you're right Norm, I thought I saw that before!  Here's a link to the manual, I had posted this in the reference manuals section.  It should answer most of the questions about connections.

Digital Dynamics Motor Mite Instruction Manual

Did some experimenting and below is a drawing of the board showing the connections that I have found, right now it has been driving a pair of Williams for over an hour.

Did you look at the Motor Mite documentation?  It fully documents the board.

At the end it also warns of motor size limitations.

You might be pushing your luck with two motors.

Yup, I down loaded the manual and am testing with one motor.  I need to get some R4LC's, but I want it put it in my Flyer EP-5, it has two small motors in it and two head lites, so should be able to handle that.   Thanks everyone, the Forum is the greatest...

Marty

The amount of technical expertise available on this forum is amazing, especially in the field of electronics geekery.

When these were available they were the smallest motor driver out there. I tried to get a few just as as Ed was closing his doors. No email replies or returned phone calls. 

Martin, you mention two small motors. If these are Mabuchi RS385s you will be pushing the limits. If these are smaller, like a starter set motor then maybe you will be OK.

Pete

Only pulling about one and a half amps with four passenger cars, these are pretty small Flyer motors from Lionel, can type...

 That is pretty minimal on draw. But think about your peaks under load, and increases from age, wear, etc., too. Overkill maybe, but add a poly fuse to the motor near "the board's amp limit"(?), if the motor control can handle it being there without freaking out, it could save the board if you ever push it too hard unexpectedly.

  The size of that is pretty cool. I thought in might have even needed a piggyback board to work. 

Actually, I use a Polyfuse with a trip point well below the boards rating, they have a pretty long delay time unless you exceed the trip by a huge margin.  For the Cruise Commander Lite with the 4A max current drivers, I use a 1.9A trip Polyfuse.  If you're drawing more than that, you're either pulling way too many cars or you've had a motor stall.

Using a ohm meter I get a tone per drawing above from antenna pin #23 to the second from left pin on the board, what would the other three pins be used for???

I looked at the MabuchiRS385s and the Flyer motors are much smaller, what is the rating for the mighty mite board???

Marty

From the instruction manual I linked previously, did you read it?