Postwar to TMCC

[Anonymous]

  I am much behind the times when it comes to the modern electronics. I am curious as to what it takes to convert postwar to TMCC. Can it be done? For How much? Is it easy to do?

[csxt30]

You can also not convert your postwar engines & take advantage of some of the features of TMCC.  Just by purchasing a base & cab-1 remote & a powermaster or better yet a TPC-300 you can blow the whistles or horn & use the remote anywhere in the room. Also you can open MTH couplers if you end up with an MTH PS-2 engine. Now the biggest advantage of using your TPC with postwar will be the incredible slow speed running, that you don't get with a normal transformer. With this outfit, you will be ready for command engines also.

Now for adding TMCC to your existing postwar engines, here are some sites to check prices on.

  http://www.tastudios.com/index2.htm

   http://www.electricrr.com/

 There is also Digital Dynamics but I can't seem to get their site up now .

Thanks, John

[chuck]

Diesel engine conversions are more straight forward.  The plastic shells usually have room inside to accomodate the circuit boards and the antenna can be attached to the roof of the shell.  Steam locomotives are more difficult in that there usually isn't room in a diecast boiler to mount the electronics and you will need to get creative on how to mount the antenna.  I had a diecast tender that required swapping in nylon scres and "floating" the tender shell to isolate it from the tender frame.  Good news was the entire diecast component became the antenna.  You will also eed to rig a tether between the tender and the loco to transfer control signals to the actual motor. 

It will probably run about $150 for TMCC boards and Railsounds components.  If you have some mechanical abilities and like doing this type of work, it will take about 1-2 hours to do the conversion yourself.  TAS does installations at very reasonable prices if electical and mechanical work isn't your cup of tea.