# Can motors



## Gman307 (Sep 21, 2015)

Hello all. I've read what I could find on can motors, but am not seeing it in black and white. Are can motors ac powered too or just dc? Thanks.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

It would be my guess that most of the can motors you read about
relative to modelling are DC. Polarity determines the direction of
rotation. Only 2 wires to it.

A motor to be used on an S gauge loco would need to be AC and
would likely have 2 windings selected by the AF version of
the E unit. That is what determines the
direction of rotation. 

Don


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Gman307, if you are looking at the can motor conversion kits from Portlines those appear to be DC motors. The Dallee unit included for AC operation supplies a DC output to the motor and reverses the polarity in sequence to achieve the equivalent of a Gilbert 4 position reverse unit.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I have never seen a can motor for AC used in a model train application. Clearly, many are used in AC environments, they all have AC-DC conversion before the motor.


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## Gman307 (Sep 21, 2015)

Got it! Thank you for the break down. I'm old school and still prefer to run my train on ac. Again, what a great bunch of guys here on this forum!!!!!


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