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I used the TCS M1 decoder in all these locos for one basic reason, the wires attached to the decoder are long, fine and, most importantly here, very flexible. The fact that the decoder has BEMF was just a bonus not a reason. |
44 Class
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I'll start with a loco that brings back memories for many of us. I had 2 of these - 30 years ago. The Locomotive is the Ibertren 44 Class from Spain. The loco has electrical pickup from the six wheels in the front truck. The trailing truck has six driven wheels all with traction tires. |
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Unclip the body and remove. You will see a printed circuit board on to of the chassis - two wires from the pickups on the front truck and then two wires going to the motor. The most important thing is the slot in the metal weight under the board. Place the decoder in the slot (with the wires facing forward) and place a small piece of sticky tape over the top to hold in place while you are working.
The Red & Black wires pass through the two holes near the front and are solder in place of the old wires on the pick up. The Orange & Grey wires are soldered to the contacts on the bottom of the motor. If you only want to drive the loco then that is all there is to it. The three remaining wires are for lights and can be cut off. Refit the body and start programming. |
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BUT, if you want a little more, like a working headlight, then leave these three wires for now and you can work on the headlight. Right in the centre if the headlight, drill a 1mm hole. Using a 3mm Golden White LED and drill a 1mm hole down the middle. Stop before you get to the element about half way. Cut a piece 1mm fibre optic about 25mm long and glue into the LED |
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Fit the LED and Fibre in place. Bend the wires to follow the contour of the chassis. Fit the body to the chassis and trim the FO to sit just outside the headlight hole. Bell the end of the fibre by holding the soldering iron close - do not touch - to the end of the fibre, you will see the fibre change shape to look like a lens. |
EL Class |
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This part deals with the latest offering for Australian N scale - the EL class, a 3300 hp, GE powered loco. This particular model is powered by the Atlas SD chassis used on USA locos. It is split frame and a very reliable runner.
If this was an American loco I would use the drop-in AMD1 board complete with front and back lights.
Because of the resin casting of the body the LEDs would have to be removed in this loco so an M1 will do the job (and it is cheaper).
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The board that sits in the top of the chassis is shown above. Cut the tracks as shown to isolate the motor - the 2 round pads connect to the motor. |
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Solder the four wires as shown, the red & black for pickup and the orange & grey for the motor. Use double sided tape to fit the decoder to the chassis. |
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You can finish here as you wish, and just cut the 3 other wires short and refit the body. I chose to add the head lights using the same method as for the 44 class. This time I used 2 x 0.75 mm fibre optics from the one LED. |
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In all cases I use 820 ohm resistors for this type of application. Remember the longer lead on the LED goes to the Blue wire from the decoder.
The Atlas chassis is used in a number of the Australian locos, in the photo above you can see the X class body in the background. I did not receive any of the locos in their original boxes so I do not know who makes the Australian part of them.
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GM Class |
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The other chassis that is used is the Life Like chassis. The motor is turned on its side because of height restrictions but still fits in the wide body locos such as the BL class and GM class and the 442 class. |
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There is not enough room above or below the motor to mount the decoder, so, the next best thing is to remove one of the weights and place the decoder above the gear tower as shown in the next photo. I use a piece of 5 thou styrene as a mounting pad. |
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Again the Red & Black to the pick ups and the Orange & Grey go to the motor. It does not matter which way round the wires go to the motor, if the direct is wrong it is very easy to tell the decoder to run the other way.
This loco is a GM so there is plenty of room for the headlight as you can see below. I used the same method as shown for the Ibertren 44 class above. |
81 Class |
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The 81 Class was powered by Bachmann as shown. |
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The decoder fits in the little recess at one and the wires fit between the two halves of the chassis. You have to take the chassis apart to solder the wires to the motor terminals.
Make sure the brush posts do not touch the frame - a little grinding may be called for here. There was no way of fitting lights to this loco as there is a lot of resin on the wall behind the lights - it is just not practical. |
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General Checks |
Some of the locos were way under gauge and wanted to derail on my turnouts. I have a HOn30" section on my layout so testing is not a problem. Once regauged, I checked the pickups.
The Life Like needed an adjustment to keep them in contact with the plate on the underside of the chassis.
The Bachman has curved "bits" that rub the under side of the chassis. These were re-shaped to give good contact.
The Atlas contacts all looked go.
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Programming |
Now, time for the programming. All the locos ended up with similar settings so I will list them here. Your systems will vary but the setting should be about the same - at least you have a starting point.
You can enter the loco address as you would normally with your system.
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CV2 (motor start) = 15
CV3 (acceleration) = 5
CV4 (deceleration) = 5
CV5 (top speed) = 160
CV6 (mid speed) = 80
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I like the KISS system so the number on the side of the loco is the address. The two exceptions so far are the 44100 which becomes 4100 and the 44239 which becomes 4239.
These settings are a good starting point for all the locos. The top speed setting of 160 gives 60 scale miles per hour penty of speed for most layouts. I have done 10 locos so far - just another 14 to go. |
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Gerry Hopkins MMR
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