Why not DCC in tenders?

"Roger T." wrote

Because unlike most N American steam loco's ours are not reday wired to make such an installation easy. Personally I don't like the idea of semi-permanently coupled loco's and tenders - they are cumbersome and difficult to handle for servicing.

John.

"John Turner"

then perhaps Bachman should take a leaf out of their North American book?

It's not that difficult, and I have something like 18 to 20 model steam currently on the roster, ranging from a small 0-6-0 switcher through two classes of 4-8-2s.

Service is easy and doesn't require the removal of the bodies.

I have a home made felt cradle that I invert the locos into, tender and all, and service them upside down. No problem and no damage to fine details.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

"Roger T." wrote

Yup, I've got a whole load of US outline steam loco's and I just disagree - they're cumbersome to handle and the electrical plug and sockets are a bloody nuisance.

How do you lubricate motor-bearings when they need doing then?

Peco do a servicing cradle which sounds more or less the same, but I still find the damned American loco's awkward to handle.

John.

I agree with John on this subject. I much prefer to hard wire the decoder into the same bit of the loco as the motor. The NMRA DCC plug is a terrible device. There's normally plenty of room in the loco - in many cases the decoder can be fitted in the space between the firebox sidewalls and the motor block. Don't be fooled by the decoder manufacturers who classify their products by the scale rather than by the maximum current they can handle. With decent modern motors even those decoders classed as 'Z' can be used in 4mm scale locos.

I have a Proto 200 Heritage 2-8-8-2 beast and it's a nightmare to insert the tender to loco 'cable'. It's even worse getting it out to put it back in the box - something that's necessary if you are taking the loco out for the day.

John Turner wrote:

In message , Dick Ganderton writes

Why not throw the box away and make your own in which you can put the loco and tender coupled together?

Does seem a bit odd. I've put a chip in my Bachmann N, because at the time I didn't know there were physically smaller chips I used a Lenz 1024. This is in the tender as it is just a tad too big for the space in the loco! Ok so there wires between tender and loco, but then on this model the loco and tender are permanently coupled!

Also the chip in my 9f is in the tender, but then again so is the motor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It just fits on top of the ringfield under the coal.

Two wires might not notice but if your tender does not have pickups as well as your loco then you need at least 4 wires between the two.

You would need to pass the pickups from the loco wheels through to the tender (DCC input) and connect them to the pickups from the tender wheels. The motor drive wires would then have to pass back to the motor in the loco body (DCC output) 4 wires in total. Features like lights and/or smoke would add another wire or two.

My best solution was to scrap the horrible DCC NEM plug and socket configuration completely. I use turned round pins from a DIL chip socket (dirt cheap at 3p each from RS). Just replace the NEM plug with 4 pairs of pins so that the decoder can be seperated off easily. Solder the pins watching the gender of the pins so that if you want to remove the decoder you can simply join the two wires directly to the motor. Much more compact than the bulky NEM plug.

Andrew