Sunday, January 20, 2019

NTS&B Lionel 197 Radar Tower Motor Replacement

I finally got some time to work on the layout again. My Lionel 197 Radar Tower used a vibrating motor consisting of a coil, a rubber 'drive' washer with stubs on it that grabbed the base in 1 direction to cause the rotation, a medal washer, and the radar antenna.  The drive mechanism was very noisy, and currently undependable.  No matter what I did, I could not get to dependably rotate.  I finally decided to re-motor it with a 12VDC 60 RPM Gear Motor. I planned to run it off a 3VDC adapter to get the required 12-15 RMP for the antenna.  The problem is, my 3VDC adapter was actually putting out 3.5VDC, so I added 2 diodes in series to drop the voltage to 2.44, which ended up right at 15 RPM.  Here are a couple before and after pictures.

 Original Radar Tower

Parts removed from original Tower

12V 60 RPM Motor 25mm x 72mm w 4mm shaft ($4.99) 

 Created plastic mounting washers from medicine bottle
 above and below the tower to hold motor.


Resulting smooth, quiet running tower 
(with motor hanging way down).