Hi Greg,
I really hate to disassemble anything. All too often screws come out with plastic attached.
On the other hand I have now looked close enough to tell that there are 14 lights and they definitely are LED's (not filament). That suggests that there is probably a voltage limiting circuit.
For anyone that may have had similar thoughts of adding another motor block, Lewis confirmed that the Doodlebug has a FA-1 motor block but he also pointed out that it is recessed and it would be pretty difficult to add a 2nd motor block to the Doodlebug.
A very nice feature is that the Doodlebug has a MU connector at the rear (most likely for battery power) but for my purposes I will probably use it to connect the Doodlebug to the Heavyweight track contacts to double the track contacts from 8 wheels to 16 wheels (track contacts).
The Doodlebug/Coach run very well on my track with minimum flickering but for outside use, with 16 track contacts, it should be able to run on VERY dirty track. The set is rated for a minimum of 8' diameter curves.
One other thing I found interesting is that the LED's are what I would call orange - in both the Doodlebug and the Heavyweight (Santa Fe versions) but when running, the coach clerestory(?) light seems to be amber in the Doodlebug and white (clear) in the Heavyweight. This is probably a result of the seats in the Santa Fe Doodlebug being brown and the seats in the Santa Fe Heavyweight being blue resulting in a different reflected light color. At first I was not sure how I felt about the different colors but now it is insignificant to me. I did look at the 2nd Santa Fe set and the seat colors match the colors of the 1st set.
Eventually (no promises about how soon) I will check the Doodlebug and coach for amperage drain. I suspect that with a single motor and LED lights it will be very low.
There IS NOT a plug-in interface for any decoders but I am sure that someone will soon be installing decoders into the Doodlebugs. Since the Doodlebugs are not actually brand new someone has probably already been doing it. I will probably end up putting a MRC decoder in them some day just because the MRC decoders were so cheap and my installation will do nothing more than to put the decoder between the track pickups and the Doodlebug wires that would normally have gone to the track pickups.
Both the Doodlebug and Heavyweights have two axle trucks so they look balanced. My comments only refer to the Santa Fe version. I saw the B&O and D&RGW versions but never took a close look at them. I think Lewis came up with a real winner with these sets. Heck, where else can you find a "train" for about $200?
Regards,
Jerry
