Looking for parts

[Pauwels Mike-rycl90 <Mike.Pauwels@motorola.com>]

Y'all,

I have taken apart Hugh's engine yesterday to find out why the smoke is intermittent.  As someone had suggested, the resister had burned up.  However I have not been successful in finding a replacement resistor (and the fiberous element covering it) anywhere on the web.  Could someone direct me to a supply for these parts?  The engine is a K-line, and I wrote the website for advice but so far no answer.

I have also investigated why his tender whistle wouldn't work.  After disassembling, testing, reverse engineering, etc. I found out that the whistle actually does work if the transformer connections to the track are reversed.  In a conventional whistling tender, the whistle is activated by the superimposed DC on the track using a DC relay.  The polarity of the relay was not significant.

However with the electronic switch used by the K-line tender is polarity sensitive.  When I reversed the transformer leads, the circuit switched the current properly.  This brings me to a question for you experts out there.  When the whistle switch is closed, is the center track supposed to be positive with respect to the outside tracks?  Is that the way the club layout is wired?  Do the club command controls actually apply conventional whistle signals to the tracks?  (His whistle didn't seem to work on the club layout either.)

Regards,

Mike Pauwels