Bachmann 38 Ton Shay

[cacole]

I recently acquired a new Bachmann 38 Ton Two-Truck Shay. When I opened it up to check on installing a sound decoder, I discovered that wires to the rear truck's motor come up right in the center of the cutout where the speaker is supposed to be mounted.

Bachmann provides better documentation and schematics with this locomotive for installing a DCC decoder for use with track power, but I also want to convert it to AirWire900 Wireless DCC and battery operation.

Due to the lack of space in the locomotive proper, I'm considering the possibility of putting the AirWire decoder and batteries in a trailing boxcar and running wires from there into the tender for connection to Bachmann's circuit board.

If anyone here has tackled sound installation or conversion of this puppy to battery power, please provide information on any problems you encountered.

Thanks

[dsweet]

Hi If you have not acquired the Air wire system yet, the RCS system will compeltely fit inside the Shay. All the electronics, battery and sound. Using the handrail or our antenna to track pick up you should get 40-50' range. If you need more range than I recommend adding the E-Cubed tunned antenna for an extra $12. The RCS has 8 functions so you will get all the similair control of DCC. Please contact me if you have more questions.

Don

[cacole]

I wound up putting the speaker and DSX sound-only decoder in the Shay's tender, and everything else in a trailing boxcar. I could possibly have squeezed everything into the Shay's boiler area, but didn't want to risk not being able to get it back together. Everything is running great with the AirWire900 receiver/decoder in the boxcar along with the battery.

[TonyWalsham]

Cacole,
Here is one way to install R/C so that it will all fit on board.

http://www.rcs-rc.com/bikbgl.pdf
It will work with any brand of R/C that is small enough to fit.
The only changes I make nowadays is to mount the RF-RX under the floor and have the sound system in the tender.
This allows the antenna wire to be fed up into the cab and connected to one handrail. Greatly improves the range.

[Anonymous]

I have done two Shay . Airwrie& sound

WWW.JOHNSHOBBIES.COM

[Anonymous]

I have done the same Shay several times with different radios but putting everything in the tender area. Currently using an Airwire system and DSX sound. Very tight but doable. I moved the speaker up under the coal load for better sound and to free up needed space on the floor. As stated, for 75 MHz systems you can run the antenna wire up behind the engineer to an array under the roof. Airwire just sticks up through a hole in the tender. You have to separate the battery input from the internal circuit board. I can e-mail you a circuit diagram if you message me at [e-mail] You will end up in the junk mail folder so give me a distinctive title to recognize.

A good alternative with the Shay is to put all the electronics in the tender and run two wires back to a battery car consisting of sub-C cells in dummy logs. Should run for more than three hours with NiMH cells.

[jnichols]

I just finished my 38 ton Shay install which included batteries, an Airwire decoder, and a Tsunami sound decoder. Here are a couple of notes I have concerning the installation:

1. Remove the factory lighting board and support bracket for the board. It's very easy to use small resistors for the LED voltage drop required and the decoder provide a much more realistic ash pan and firebox glow than the factory board does. Also remove the factory weight in the back of the tender.

2. To fix the motor wires coming up through the speaker opening simply break out two of the plastic supports in the speaker grill and feed the wires through the hole towards the front of the speaker opening.

3. Use smaller batteries. I know there are a lot of guys out there who are still afraid of Li-Ion batteries, but when used with the proper under/over charge circuit they are indespensible for this type of installation. I installed two packs of three LG 18650 2400mAh cells for a total of 11.1 volts and 4800 mAh. This works very well in the Shay and provides for just about the perfect top speed. Run times with the smoke unit on and pulling 6 log cars are somewhere between 1.5-2 hours with this setup. Turning the smoke unit off adds another hour or so. I use Li-Ion batteries in all my large scale motive power at this point and would never go back to another type of battery. The way these batteries dissapate energy, the high cell voltage (3.7 per cell), and the huge weight savings make these perfect for model railroad use. If you aren't using them yet, you should give them a try... [;)]

This installation was a lot of fun to do, and wasn't the hardest one I've done by any stretch so far (my Airwire and Tsunami equipped Spectrum Porter has this distinction). Also because you have two decoders, with some function remapping and use of the various outputs of the Airwire decoder and Soundtraxx Tsunami, I've been able to enable some really neat lighting effects (the firebox flicker using LED compensation on the Tsunami is especially good). So far I've had no problems programming the Tsunami from the CVP T9000 throttle, and since Al took care of me by replacing my old T9000's, the functions work perfectly as well!

Jeff