Rewire a Bachmann for control car

[kcndrr]

Hello folks.

I have a Bachmann Climax locomotive. This is the two-truck style.

I want to change it from track pickup to a battery/control car type.

I took the lower cover off and found the circuit board, but they are all the same color wires.  I have no idea which ones to cut the track power and which ones to attach the power lead to.  Using the continuity tester they all seem to be connected.

Has anyone else done this?

I contacted the Bachmann forum and all they said was that all you had to do was look at the wiring diagram in the book.   Well, the diagram is very small, and I am not an electrician, so any help will be greatly appreciated, and pictures tell a thousand words, so pictures are the most useful.

 

Really hope I can do this because I really like the Bachmann locos, and if I can do it to this one I will then purchase the Shay and Heisler to do it to them also.

 

Really liked the way it ran when I was using track power, but now I have gone to onboard control and would like to get the item off the shelf.

.

Thanks

 

KC

[cacole]

I don't have a Bachmann Climax but I have converted two Bachmann 1:20.3 Consolidations and a 2-Truck Shay to battery power and AirWire900 radio control.  Your best bet is to remove every track pickup wiper from the locomotive's wheels if you're going to run it from a battery, because if any of the wipers are left in place they can cause a short circuit.

The first Consolidation I bought was dead on arrival.  I contacted Bachmann and asked them if they had a wiring schematic.  Their answer was that the manufacturer in China had provided nothing, and as far as color code was concerned they were just wired with whatever color happened to be available that day.

I eventually removed everything but the headlight and started from scratch because it was impossible to trace the wiring.

 

[kcndrr]

Got my Climax wired for control/battery car control.

Took me longer to figure out how to do it than to actually do the job.

 

Removed the trucks by removing the small screw for the springs on the outside of each side of the truck, these are located from the bottom view, removed the larger screw located under the removed spring holder behind that for the truck to hanger mount,

Removed the hanger with the one center screw

The truck removal is also outlined in the climax operator manual on paged 28 and 29.

Soldered the battery connection wire (two wire All Electronics CON-240) to the half circle brass plates that the trucks connect to. Run that wires out over the couplers through a hole drilled in the coupler mount.

 

On the trucks, I took off the bottom cover, 6 screws, and removed the track pickup connectors to the wheels.  There is one on each wheel; these consist of the ball bearing, the cylinder holder for the spring and connector. These just popped out by using an Exacto knife to pry them out.

 

This will now only allow battery/control through the soldered connections at each truck. This is now connected to the control / battery car.

My battery/control cars are various 40-foot box cars with an Aristo 27 MHz Train Engineer (55470) and battery source, either 16 AA Nimh or the Aristo Li-ion battery.

 

Seems to work pretty good, and good to have the climax back and running on my layout

 

KC

[Curmudgeon]

If you ever want to eliminate trail car, I do Climaxes all on-board, 2100MAH of 14.4v NiMH, RCS and Sierra Sound, runs for over three hours (haven't killed it yet).