DCC and "Seasoned" Brass Locomotives

[P5se Camelback]

I think I did mention that sound was one of the reasons I was considering DCC. If I didn't, I should have because the SoundTrax Light Steam with the Reading Company 6-chime steam whistle gets my nostalgia juices flowing!

... I want to hear that on my layout!

[doctorwayne]

Very evocative sound, biL - it'd be nice to record multiple times at ever-increasing, then ever-diminishing volumes to lull you to sleep at night. Memories.....

Wayne

[P5se Camelback]

Very evocative sound, biL - it'd be nice to record multiple times at ever-increasing, then ever-diminishing volumes to lull you to sleep at night. Memories..... Wayne

Now that's a BLOODY BRILLIANT IDEA!!!!!!!

.... Thanks, DoctorWayne!

[woodone]

I think I did mention that sound was one of the reasons I was considering DCC. If I didn't, I should have because the SoundTrax Light Steam with the Reading Company 6-chime steam whistle gets my nostalgia juices flowing!

... I want to hear that on my layout!

Sorry, I missed your post about using sound.
The biggest challenge that you are going to have on converting these brass locomotives is the size of them. The fact that you want to use a sound decoder makes things much more challenging. Camelback locomotives have very little room to work with. Most sound decoder installs into steam locomotives, puts the decoder , speaker and other electronics into the tender. Now with re-motoring you might be able to install a Micro- Tsunami decoder and a small speaker into a Camelback. This will be a tight fit, so it will depend on just how much room there is to work with inside one of them .

[P5se Camelback]

... biggest challenge ... is the size of them. Camelback locomotives have very little room to work with. Most sound decoder installs ... puts the decoder , speaker and other electronics into the tender.

I have thought about the whole "shoehorning" issue, believe me. It's pretty obvious that with the weight (what there is of it) in the smokebox, the motor/gearbox in the cab area, about the only area left is in the firebox and in the tender. And the tender could be getting pretty crowded! The litte 0-4-0's and 0-6-0's have some pretty small tenders ... but I think there's room in the firebbox for a very small ("N" scale size) decoder and then, with an abundance of "water lines" to the tender, a speaker of an inch or less could probably fit in there, and if needed the decoder might fit in there, too. It'd be very tight ... so tight there would be no need for a "speaker box" - the crammed-in electronics wouldn't let the sound come out any other way but through the front!

The larger 4-6-0's, 2-8-0's and 4-4-2's have a lot more room in the fireboxes and the tenders are considerably larger. I don't think I should have any trouble with space with them. Also, from what I've seen, a lot of these newer can motors are smaller than the big square clunkers of open-frame motors mounted vertically in the cab area and driving a gear on the main drive wheel axle.

As for how it will all really work, we'll just have to wait and see. The first candidate for remotoring and decoder/speaker installation will be one of the two the Gem (Olympia) Reading I5c Consolidations. If I can carry that one off, it'll give my heart wings! I had lusted for that locomotive since I first saw it (with the rare tender canopy) back in 1958! To hear it as it moves along the tracks will give me a "Cheshire Cat Grin!"

[woodone]

I am not sure shoehorning is the correct word here. LOL.
You will have to plan well and make good use of what space you have to work with.
That is why I stated that you may need to use the Tsunami TSU-750 series decoder. The problem with the 750 is it will only support 3/4's of an amp for a motor load. So you need to make sure that the amp draw is 750 MA or lower on your motors. The next problem is where to put a capacitor. The Tsunami's require a cap to make them work well. The 220 Uf cap that comes with the decoder is quite large and takes up a lots of room. I have been using surface mount capacitors hooked up in parallel to save room. Sometimes when you use two surface mount caps you can find room in two smaller places and get these wired up. Without the capacitor you will faced with the stopping and restarting of the locomotive every time you hit a small piece of dirt on the track or when the locomotive crosses a insulated frog.
Have a good plan in place and work slow.
Good luck on your project.

[P5se Camelback]

When I was a young boy (in the early 1950's) my family would travel from North Philadelphia to the Pocono Mountains for the month of August for my Dad's vacation from his duties as a Methodist Minister. On the morning of the first of August, I used to stand on the sidewalk and watch with studied interest as Dad packed all of the suitcases, cardboard boxes and all of the assorted additional items necessary to support a family of two adults, three children and a German Sheherd for a month into the trunk of a '49 Chrysler Windsor Coupe and then place the play pen, the high chair and any larger items that wouldn't fit into the trunk on the roof rack and tie them down with the cotton rope that was normally the family back yard clothes line.

When he was finished, you would not have been able to slip the morning newspaper into that trunk ... there was not two square millimeters of wasted space -- that amount of stuff would only fit in the trunk of that coupe one way, and that is the way it was done ... the man was a master at space utilization! [Once on the road I'm sure we looked like a band of Gypsies, all crammed into and on top of that coupe! I can remember him commenting to Mom about being able to feel the affects of the wind on the car!]

Lets just say that I studied that exercise at the beginning and end of every August for years until, as a teenager, I became an indentured apprentice ... but I had already learned the basic skills by years of observation, and was now learning to put those skills into practice under the scrutiny of the Master. I can still out-pack anyone -- I double-dog dare you to a challenge!

If it's at all possible to fit what's necessary to convert into one of those Camelbacks to DCC, I'll find the way! And if it's deemed "not possible" by the nay-sayers, I may still find a way!

[rrinker]

There are two keys to decoder fitting. FIrst, current draw of the motor. If the stall current on DC at 12 volts is less than the decoder's rating, you're good. You have to measure this, unless you can find a review of the exact loco in one of the magazines that lists it.
Second factor is motor isolation. There can be no contact between the track pickups and the motor contacts once the decoder is in place. This is instant death to the decoder. In older motors, there can sometimes be sneak paths through all metal gears if the brushes are not both insulated from the motor chassis. In other cases (and this is even for modern plastic locos - the Proto 2000 S-1 comes to mind), the pickups fromt he wheels are isolated but the chassis carries one side to the motor. If a decoder is connected it works just fine - until the loco derails one of of the wheels contacts both a rail and the frame.

Now, we all have locos that are irreplaceable for sentimental reasons. Some brass is irreplaceable because no one every made that particular loco. Others though, have been redone in more modern forms that turn out better. Case in point, the PCM Readign T-1. WHen they first came out, my ex father in law and I each got one. He already had one of the NJ (Daiyung) brass T-1's. We put them side by side, no contest, the PCM plastic model was much nicer. Plus it came with DCC and sound. Now, they plastic model still does not touch the detail of the Overland T-1, so if you have one of those.. but the Overland model has a modern can motor and is (relatively) easy to convert to DCC.

Bottom line is, there is practicaly nothing that can't be converted to DCC. Some just takes more time, money, and effort than others.

--Randy

[P5se Camelback]

... Now, we all have locos that are irreplaceable ... Some brass is irreplaceable because no one every made that particular loco. ... Bottom line is, there is practicaly nothing that can't be converted to DCC. Some just takes more time, money, and effort than others. --Randy

Thanks for the input, Randy ...

... and ...

Glad to see you clicked on the link ... I hope you find this place interesting enough to stop by often ... maybe even go railfanning with E-paw and the others from that area! Check out the Big Blue gathering at the EBT later this month!

Again ...

[rrinker]

Thanks for the input, Randy ...

... and ...

Glad to see you clicked on the link ... I hope you find this place interesting enough to stop by often ... maybe even go railfanning with E-paw and the others from that area! Check out the Big Blue gathering at the EBT later this month!

Again ...

Well I'm on all the others, what's one more?
At this rate I will NEVER get my layout finished, too busy reading forums.

--Randy

[P5se Camelback]

There should be a Fall (or a Winter) Challege happening soon ... if we can find Don "ezdays" ...

Maybe that'll get you out of the computer chair and into the one in front of the work bench! The last one built a fire under me after twenty years! Maybe you'll be motivated to be "workin' on the railroad ..."

But be forewarned ... we like pictures!

:needpics:

[doctorwayne]

Hi Randy, and to Big Blue. Nice to see you over here.

Wayne

[Wayne R]

I have added DCC to a few brass locomotives and depending on the locomotive it is not all that hard to do. The motor has to be isolated from the frame first. After that it is not much different than a plastic locomotive when it comes to the connections. You do have to make sure you have all your connections covered with heat shrink ( or tape ) as with brass the locomotive picks up power from one rail and the tender from the other.
A few things I have learned are:

1-Most of the open frame motors draw to many amps for DCC decoders.
2-The open frame motors do not run very smooth. I remotored all my locomotives with can motors that have skewed armatures.They run way better.
3-If the factory gearbox is worn or was a noisy one from the beginning it will need to be replaced with a NWSL gearbox for a smooth quiet running locomotive.
4-The mechanism must roll smoothly and freely with the gear box removed as adding DCC will not correct mechanical problems.
5-Some locomoties will require extra electrical pickups.Most of all if you have dead switch frogs.
6-Most locomotives have room in the boiler for a DCC decoder.Smaller ones will require the decoder to go in the tender meaning 3 wires between the loco and tender ( 2 motor wires & 1 electrical pickup wire from the locomotive ) and if a working headlight is require two more wires for the headlight.

7-If you are adding a DCC sound decoder it will most likely mean the decoder will be going in the tender with the speaker.
*Note: I added a Tsunami sound decoder to my CNR J-4-e pacific and had to choose the micro Tsunami sound decoder ( TSU-750 ) as there was no room in the tender for both the decoder and speaker.The decoder ended up in the boiler sitting on a flat spot milled into the lead boiler weight. Seeing as the micro Tsunami runs hot this is a good thing as the weight acts as a heat sink. My CNR S-2 mikado will have the decoder and speaker in the tender just like my CNR 2-8-0.
My CNR 4-8-2 is another one where I was able to fit the sound decoder in the boiler.In this case a 1amp Tsuami ( TSU-1000 ). It was a good thing the deoder would fit in the boiler as it saved me having to run 7 wires between the loco and the tender.I now have one power wire and two speaker wires.

I have had no real big problems converting my brass locomotives to DCC and with a little carefull work they are all really nice running locomotives.They all run just as good as my plastic Proto 2000 heritage 0-8-0 and 0-6-0 switchers and the Proto locomotives are real good runners.


Wayne Reid

[Steamtrains]

Oh boy......I just clicked on the sound link.....Why did I have to go do that..?? Now I'm gonna have to go looking for some sound decoders....

Question...Will the locos do that "breathing" sound when stopped..?? That's the sweetest sound in the world....

[P5se Camelback]

Thanks for the encouragement, Wayne!

I was getting exasperated by all the naysayers ... this afternoon there was a self-appointed know-it-all on the Model Railroader DCC Forum (now I remember why I hardly ever go there any more) who suggested that those of us rejoining the hobby after an absence of a number of years should place our older "poor-running, not-very-well detailed" antiques in boxes and place them "in a dark corner of a closet" and purchase an up-to-date DCC-equipped diesel and move on. Imagine the chutzpah of this clueless clown who probably buys everything R-T-R and has never built an actual model.

It's like the young "hot-shoes" in their Honda Civics, who don't have a clue which end of the wrench to hold, have had all on the mods done for them at the local import hop-up shop, who can't understand how it happened when I tell them their stock 1.8L engined, slick-looking paint-jobbed, huge-wheeled vehicle that's fast in a straight line has just been shown the tail lights of a bored 0.040" over, stage 3 cammed, 11:1 compression ratio-ed, balanced, tube headered, competition strutted, very quick little ground-hugging 1.3L Ford Festiva!! They haven't a clue how to do what I have done, and (except for the over-bore and balancing) I did it myself in my own garage!

So, thank you, your words are greatly appreciated. I will figure out how to re-motor and add the sound decoders and even a new gearbox if needed because, when it all comes down to it, this is a hobby where we do things, not just an excuse to buy new stuff that is mass-produced! (... And that from someone who spent his career designing things for mass production!)