WIRING IDEA FOR K-LINE MP15 SWITCHERS

First a question I thought they had a lock out switch so you could lock it in reverse. 

It does sound like it would work but I'm no electronic wizzer 

Most lock out switches will start an engine in forward after the power is off for 5 minutes or more so that won't help. You could swap the motor wires around at the circuit board(carefully pull the wires out of the connector, use a needle nose pliers or small screw driver, and then re-insert) where they go to the motors and see if the engine will start in reverse, this can be done to Williams engines so I would think that it would work with K-Line as well.

Lee Fritz

Freight Train Jim posted:

A question for the electrical experts - can a K-Line MP15 switcher motor wires be reversed on the engine to start in reverse?

The idea is to run two switchers back to back for additional power, Can this be done?

Any help or comments are appreciated. Thanks.

Absolutely. Just swap the motor wires.

For example, if the motor has one yellow wire and one blue wire, put the yellow one where the blue one was and the blue one where the yellow one was.

You can swap them at the motor, or you can swap them at the reverse unit.

Do the same for the other motor. Easy peasy.

And/or you can add another concealed DPDT switch to choose the start-up direction as you wish.

phillyreading posted:

Most lock out switches will start an engine in forward after the power is off for 5 minutes or more so that won't help. You could swap the motor wires around at the circuit board(carefully pull the wires out of the connector, use a needle nose pliers or small screw driver, and then re-insert) where they go to the motors and see if the engine will start in reverse, this can be done to Williams engines so I would think that it would work with K-Line as well.

Lee Fritz

I do not think this is true for Lockout switches.  They disable logic.  This is true for some electronics that will always reset to Fwd after an extended shutoff, vice the next logic state; BUT the switch must be in RUN position.  G 

The problem you will run into with all of the above ideas is the unpredictability of the sequencing of the E-Units in each engine. Even though  the new electronic units are far more predictable then the old mechanical units they still have the old problem of coming up in different states from time to time.

The only way you can be sure of dependable direction control between the two engines is to install a four or six amp E unit in one engine and then using the  DPDT switch that Rob spoke of above and a power harness between each engine. The DPDT switch will be placed in the motor drive loop of the slave engine where it will decide by you if it is to run as a slave off the engine with the larger E unit via the harness or off of it's own 2 amp E-unit. The harnesses will just go unused when the engines are operated independently.

Then you can reverse the motor wires in one engine so it will always run opposite direction of each other when married through the harness.

The reason for the larger E-unit is the extra power draw of two engines off of one E-unit not designed to service that much power.

You can always do what Rob suggest above and it will probably work most of the time, but then you will have to be dealing with the sequencing issue I mentioned periodically.

Good Luck and Have fun. It sounds like a fun project.

If you wire each of the loco's motors in series, you can keep the original reverse unit(s) and run both together off one, disabling the reverse unit(via switch) in the slave unit as needed/wanted.

Swapping the motor leads is the easiest way to do it. I have a Williams PA, E7A, GP9 and U33C that I rewired by swapping the motor leads to start in reverse so I can run multiple powered units. sometimes they get out of sync and I just power them down for about 10 seconds and they all sync back up and run fine. After you run multiple powered units for a while, you will get used to how to change direction with your transformer and you will have very few issues with them getting out of sync.

Cool, I guess you just have to go through the sequences slowly to make sure both units have time to respond.

gg1man posted:

Cool, I guess you just have to go through the sequences slowly to make sure both units have time to respond.

 

Exactly. I use the throttle handle to change direction instead of the direction button. I wait about a whole second before cycling power. It can be a little trickier with three or more powered units. I have a Williams E7 ABA set, all powered and as long as I take my time cycling the power they stay synced up with rare exception. The B-unit can be tricky. I have to remember to look closely at the unit to make sure I have the front facing the correct direction when I put it on track or things get very interesting.

I did this to 2 Yorkrail Lionel locos, looks impressive going around the layout without any histrionics, also did this to a pair of Amtrak MTH locos, Railking version, just had to turn down the sounds for one, due to the station sounds. Impresses me when I do something right.