Quick Kato motor question

[montyvox]

Good afternoon everyone-

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year.

Quick quesiton- On a Kato motor and the copper motor clips from the top and bottom of the motor, which one of those is the positive and which one is the negative lead?

I'm putting in a tsunami decoder and I forget which is which.

Thanks
Matt

[Mark R.]

I've never really concerned myself with which was which. Rotate the motor 180 degrees and it's just the opposite - depending on how the motor was installed. I just hook everything up, and if it runs backwards, I'll just switch the motor leads if they are easily switched, or just reprogram CV29 to run the opposite direction.

That being said, if you really need to know .... using DC power - when the right hand rail is positive, the motor terminal that should be positive is the one that causes the motor to turn in the direction that creates forward movement of the engine.

If you think about it, that could still be either of the two motor terminals depending on whether "forward" is short hood or long hood as it could be either depending on the railroad !

That's why I just go with the simple 50:50 gamble and correct it after the fact if needed.


Mark.

[tlbeers]

the short copper line is on top and it goes to the left side of the board, so the long one goes on the right side of the board.