Mallard went to Austria
Hello everybody,
the first thing to do is to apologize for my English - I am just an Austrian guy who is addicted to railways (yes also British ones 😉 ) - so my English is not perfect at all.
A few days ago I was able to catch a Mallard live steam full set in nearly mint condition. While I was pupil I saw this engines in some model shops in GB, but was not able to afford one. Meanwhile I got a job and a bit more money on my account, so I went for it (and I also went for a rolling road, because I read that these engines can be quite tricky to drive).
Yesterday I tried to run the engine on the rolling road, but I failed because of no power on the controller (no red light on - yes, power switch on) - so I will have to have a look why there is no power. I hope that this is a minor problem (connection?) but I will see. I fact I think that there will be a lot of questions about the how to and I am glad that there is a club such like this one where I can lots of useful information. 😀
Yours - Lukas and his Mallard from Austria
So, one step ahead, and hopefully the solution. But before I start soldering, I'll ask the swarm intelligence of the club. Safety first.
The first thing (after buying new batteries for my multimeter) was to have a look in the controller. Every plug is in place. After that I opened the transformer to have a look, which of the 4 pins is + and which is - (of course not plugged in). The first thing I found, which was surprising for me, is the red switch for switching between 230V and 110V. So the US transformer is the same box, just with an other typeplate and a different wire (nice to know, for the opportunity to move to the USA 😉 ). The real nice thing was, that everything is clean and tidy, no dirt.
I figured out, that the two upper pins are the red (so should be +) and the lower pins are black (should be - then). The both upper and lower poles seems to be connected by soldering.
After taking the mulimeter and measuring the two upper poles I figured out, that they are connected. So the left side delivers voltage.
After measuring the two lower pins, I found out, that there is no pass, the resistance is 1 (no connection). As second test I looked for the voltage, which is 0.
In fact - it is possible to push a thin sheet of paper between the wire and the pole (see photo).
So I have
++
- 0
instead of
++
- -
Am I right, when I think, that the two lower poles should have to be soldered to the black wire?