After a 30 year wait, I can now have sufficent space for a layout. I have many locomotives 30 years and older. I have seen people converting the "blue box" diesels on YouTube to DCC so I'm going to do that as time permits, however I haven't found anyone who has done so with a Mantua steam loco. (perhaps my search technique needs some refining?)
Thanks for the help
Sure.
Two of my oldest locomotives that I have installed decoders in are fifty years old, at least.
In its simplest form a decoder essentially installs between the pair of wires leading from left and right rails to both motor leads + and - .
If your Mantua picks up power from one side of the locomotive and the other side from the tender wheels these will each go to the black and red inputs of the decoder.You should also check the "stall current" of the motor, too. This is not as critical as it used to be as some newer decoders have higher motor current limits but you should be sure your motor draws one amp or less.
THIS GUIDE is geared toward a Soundtraxx decoder but the information here is good and it is applicable to many other DCC decoder installs.
https://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals/Installation-Guide.pdf
Whichever terminal of the motor is plus, this would get the orange output wire from the decoder and the gray wire to the minus side.
The plus terminal of the motor is the one that makes the locomotive move forward when positive DC power is applied (you can test this with a 9V battery).
SOME older locomotives and especially brass engines, one electrical side of the motor is common with the frame of the locomotive. This connection has to be isolated.
I did it on this motor simply by insulating the brushes from the motor frame:
DD1-DCC1 by Edmund, on Flickr
You can see where I soldered the gray and orange wires directly to each brush assembly.
DD1-DCC3 by Edmund, on Flickr
The decoder I chose in this case is one that has a built in "keep alive" capacitor which helps older engines with poor track continuity keep rolling in spite of breif power interruptions.
Hope that helps, Ed
sure .. not a problem ...
while you are at it, upgrade the power pickup from the wheels, and maybe upgrade the motor, if it's not a can type already ..
Excellent advice there. One of the golden rules is to make sure your loco runs well on DC before doing the conversion. A keep-alive decoder will somewhat compensate for the limited number of power-pickups.
Simon
About ten years ago I did an all metal MDC HO 4-4-2 but had to send it to NWSL for a new motor. The old one needed about 1.4 amps at 12 vdc. I did not want to mess with modifying the motor.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Does it work well on DC?
A decoder needs a good-working engine. It will not improve a poor engine, though.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Mel,
I have one of those 0-6-0s and am contemplating a dcc conversion. What decoder, etc did you cram into this loco?
Just to throw in my two cents....
To isolate the motor on my Mantua engines, I removed the motor and put down a layer of rubber electrical tape on the frame where the motor sits, and then reinstalled the motor using plastic 2-56 screws.
Starting in about 1990, Mantua offered a retrofit kit to replace their open-frame motors with smooth running Sagami can motors. Even though they haven't sold them for a while, you probably can still find them online. I've done a couple of conversions and it works very nicely.
As far as I know, no Mantua-manufactured engines (i.e. before Model Power) had sound or had tenders set up with speaker enclosures. So, yes, you can add sound, but you would need to get a drill bit designed for cutting metal and drill holes in the metal tender deck to make an opening for a speaker. (You might replace the tender with either a later Model Power / Mantua one, or one from some other manufacturer like MDC (Athearn) that is set up with a speaker opening.)
rws1225 Mel, I have one of those 0-6-0s and am contemplating a dcc conversion. What decoder, etc did you cram into this loco?
Thanks, I'll get my shoehorn out and get started.
You guys may have talked me into converting one. For some reason the idea of taking apart a steam engine, is more daunting than a diesel.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
BigDaddy You guys may have talked me into converting one. For some reason the idea of taking apart a steam engine, is more daunting than a diesel.
Yes it does. smooth and strong.