The Things You do for Mates

So one of my mates went and bought a pair of HO scale ExactRail SD45's.  He said he was going full hog and would have sound and DCC in them.  But he bought the locos as DC and would do the sound and DCC "later". We advised against it...  Just get them already kitted out, a bunch of us told him, it's be cheaper and better... but noooo, he bought the DC ones.

Anyway, so eventually decoders became available after a shortage in the market for a few months.  So he got the ESU v5 21 pin sound decoders, but had no idea what speakers to get...  sheeeesh.  But that's our mate Gabs.  So I told him to hand them over and I'd fit 'em up, as he has a tendency of taking a loco shell off and then.... "Help... it's not working any more!"  is what we hear around the clubrooms from him.

So I got them home and then de-shelled one so I could figure out what speaker to get as the website wasn't too helpful on the matter.  I am glad I took the locos off my mate as it was fun and games.  As usual the couplers had to come out.  The rear one comes out fine, but the front one has to be dissassembled in situ, as there are tight tollerances and no other way to get it out.

So here we see the loco partially apart.  Just putting in a non-sound decoder would have been easy as a small hatch comes off the top of the shell , bottom left, giving access to where the DC board is and where the 21 pin decoder goes in.  But to add the sound needs a big pull apart.

So in this shot we can see the 21 pin DC jumper board in place.  This comes out easily and the 21 pin DCC decoder will plug in - the easy job.

Now I checked all over the loco mech and chassis and there was no place for speakers - at all.  Insert big sad face here.  So more dissassembly is required, and there are no instructions with the loco or on the website showing this.  Also didn't find anything in YouTube either - "bugger" says I.

So eventually I found two screws on the top side of the loco that allows the chassis to beak apart into an upper and lower part. along this line shown with the trusty tweezers.

But !, I say But !   Some of the wires are going to need to be desoldered from the main board, because there is nowhere near enough slack in the wiring to allow the top and bottom chassis parts to seperate.  I can hear that dog in the background go "bugger" again....

By the time I got to the second loco I learned.  But it always takes one at first.  I thought I'd be smart and "only" take the wires at one end off first....  So on the rear end I took the motor and wheel pickup wires off. This would allow the chassis to swing at the front end and thereby allowing access to the speaker chamber if I was "careful".    I still can hear laughter from that smart arse that sits on my shoulder overlooking my work...  By careful, you need to be triple careful.  I learned and the second loco was easier.

So I succeeded... and above you can see the speaker chamber on the right.  All wires at the front of the loco on the left side of the photo are intact... for about 5 seconds... we'll get back to thit shall we.

So four small screws hold the speaker baffle in the chassis, so out they came as did the baffle for use with two sugarcube speakers - the ESU 50321 speaker is the type I use, but there are other brands out there as well that have this size - 11mm x 15mm

But, you say "but didn't you say Gabs didn't have any speakers?".  Yep, I did, but I found I had some in my bags of DCC sound decoders and odds and sods of spare parts.  Gabs will pay me back after he orders some more for me.

So with a bit of ZAP Plasti-Zap super glue, smeared along the edges of the speakers, I popped them into the baffle.

Next the wires were soldered on.  I wired the pair of speakers up in parallel as ESU decoders can handle that and they then sound much better.  So 2 x 8 ohm speakers in parallel gives 4 ohms of impedence and ESU decoders handle that juuust fine.

Next the baffle goes back into the chassis and the wires will eventually go up the passage where the boggie pickup wires go as well.

Know how earlier that fellow on my shoulder was laughing, well it was because when I swivelled the chassis halves apart, I snapped off two very fine wires that go to one of the side frame lights that oversee the front bogie - arrggghhhh. 

So a LOT of buggerising around to solder them back on was required, including loosening up all the wires near it.

Once soldered in place I was able to tidy up the wires.

Then I held them in place with some Kapton tape.

Then it was the question of where in blue blazes do the speaker wires go?  

A quick side note. A surprise :-)  The locos come with stay alives! You can just make out the tops of two big capacitors under the main board and drilled into the chassis.

As I said before, there are no instructions, so I shot a hopeful email off to ScaleTrains.  I actually got an email from them less than a day later - thanks fellas :-)  So the speaker wires do go where I thought - the + and - "S" pads on the main board.

Next the chassis was screwed back in place and the motor wires and bogie pickup wires soldered back into place.  The wires, with all the others, were then tidied up in the top of the chassis.

Then the small plastic cable tidy cap snapped back in place to keep the jumpy fellas in place.

I then plugged the ESU decoder into my ESU test rug and connected it up to the PC and fired up the ESU Programmer software.  The firmware on the decoder got an upgrade and then I pushed the sound file onto the decoder.  ScaleTrains supplies the relevant sound file on their website - nice one fellas :-)

And then the decoder was tested and ready to install later.

The ESU sound decoder went in next - easy peasy.

Then it was onto the test track and see if I got it all correct.

Testing worked, so then it was time to fire up JMRI and do some tweaking for consist running and all tweaks one normally does - including the ESU tweak of CV54.  Set it to 0, put the loco on the track and hit F1.  The loco takes off down the track for 2 to 3 feet then stops.  What it has done is test the motor under load and auto-adjust some motor CV's - don't ask for any more technical answer here - JUST DO IT - makes for much nicer loco running. But this trick is ONLY for ESU decoders.

All tests were good and I then shot Gabs over a list of all 31 functions so he could print himself a copy so as to be able to drive it all.

I was able to find another pair of sugarcubes so was able to do his second loco as well - so on Saturday he can have two running around going ding ding, brmm brmm and rumble rumble.

Time for a cuppa I think - see ya next time.

Let There be Light

So at a recent NMRA meeting one of the fellas told of a gadget to decouple wagons.  With the help of a thin torch and a dental brush it was nicely accomplished.  So I thought to myself today - let's try it myself.

I already had some number 3 yellow tapered Interdental Brushes kicking around from a mixture I bought a while back to actually clean my airbrushes with.  They go for about 6 bucks for a 10 pack around town, so are well cheap enough.

So the other week I got onto the Internet and ordered one of these small rechargeable torches .  They are 12½ mm x 130 mm and come with a short USB charging cable and a pocket clip and cost about 6 or 7 bucks each.  With its arrival today I thought it time to play.

It does throw a very nice tight beam of light too - neat.

So for a trial, I just got a long BBQ skewer and sticky taped the dental brush and torch to it.  The final product would need to be a bit neater I reckon, but you'll get the idea.

So I found the tapered brush worked a real treat.  Some people just use the brushes by themselves or the brush stuck to a skewer without a torch, but it was so much easier to see with the torch in the mix.  The Kadee uncoupler pick is now assigned to the never use again draw.

I Ran Out of Alligators on Sticks

So I started doing just a couple of HO scale 44 gallon drums for my African 4WD Diorama.  I am using the Tichy Train Group drums as they are a very nicely molded drum and good value.  I also happen to have two or three packs of 96 drums kicking about :-)

Anyway, as per usual, the 3 drums have now become more.  I still only need 3 drums, but hey, while I am at it...  So I thought I'd just made a few dozen up for stock.

So I grabbed a box of drum kits and cut off a number from the sprues and put their lids on. The lids are designed to just clip in - so nice and easy.

So I have found that if you make a very tiny drill hole in the bottom of the drum, which you will never see since the drum sits on its bottom or you face it away from normal view, then you can screw a very tiny self tapper screw into it and use that to hold the drum while painting it.  So the pin vice with a suitable drill bit went to work and then the screw driver with the relevant self tapers.

So I already had some painting "sticks" I bought online somewhere a while back, but only had a dozen.  So I did up some blue drums first - here's the first coat and them on their "sticks".  Alligator clips on a steel skewer. 

Just getting into the swing of things and... oh... oops... I have no more "sticks"... rats.

Hang on, don't I have somewhere a pile of Alligator Clips for my electronics cables?  I'm sure I ordered a pile years back because they were cheap ad had a bunch left over.

Yep, found them. So there are plenty to spare, so I grabbed 20 and pulled the plastic off, leaving me with the bit I needed.

Good, so now I needed something strong and thin to put them on.  I have suitable spring steel wire, but that's too much effort and not needed.  I know, I have a pile of bamboo BBQ skewers I use for resting painted model bits on - way more than I need as per usual.  They'll do nicely.  In fact I did a bit of looking on eBay and found you can buy exactly what I am making with the bamboo skewers.  So I am on the right track.

So with a small pair of pliers I crimped the Alligator clips onto the skewers.

Bundle now completed and ready for some more drums to be added so I can paint some more.

And, they will do exacly the same job as the ones I purchased (on the left) :-)  

Now where's that paint thinner and brush got to?

Geep Geep

You just gotta love those old 4 axle EMD GP38-2 locos.  The GP38-2 was an upgraded version of the earlier GP38 and they had power provided by an EMD 645E 16-cylinder donk, which generated 2,000 horses under the bonnet.  They are my next favourite after the 6 axle EMD SD40-2 locomotive (3,000 horses - now whilst reading that bit, imagine Tim the Toolman grunting...).

So I happen to have three of the N scale Walthers GP38-2 locos.  These were based on the Life-Like model, so are a pretty old design.  But they are good runners and it was time for them to coming into this century and get DCC decoders installed.  The mechanism is easy enough to work with to convert from DC to DCC.

I happen to have from previous purchases, some of the Digitrax DN163A0 decoders on hand. They don't quite fit the loco, but with a minor modification they will fit - involves a hacksaw !

So, by adding another slot for the DCC Decoder board to slot into, it will all fit. So the hacksaw got to come out and play. The slot only needed to be 4-5 mm deep so it didn't reduce the strength or weight of the loco body.

There, the cut is done. I then tidied it up with a small file to remove the dags around the edges.  You can see my cut on the left, replacing the manufacturers slot just to its right, which wasn't going to do the trick for the decoder I have on hand.

Testing the decoder fit - it lines up OK.

And it is a nice snug fit, so the electrical conductivity is good.

Next I soldered on some wires to the motor and fed them up through the body.  Of course before I did this I lubricated all the gears and bearing points with my seleection of oils and greases.

Then the soldering iron got used again to solder these two wires onto the DCC Decoder - in the correct location of course.  OK, OK, so I got them swapped around and had to swap them over after I tested it - we all make mistakes!

The shell was then placed back on the loco and a full programming of settings using JMRI software was performed and the loco then tested fine.  After I do the next two GP38-2 locos, I will compare them all and make sure they are tweaked prepoerly so as to all run at the same speeds.