Hey everyone, this is my first post here so I'm going to pre-apologize if I'm breaking any sort of etiquette here. I've recently made the jump from DC to DCC and it's been years in the making so most everything I purchased had DCC onboard or at the very least DCC ready. The only two exceptions were Rivarossi locomotives and the most obvious solution would be to sell them and buy newer, more modern options but I've found it surprisingly difficult to find suitable options for Hiawatha Hudson locomotives and little 0-4-0 tender engines. I've been doing a fair bit of reading on installing DCC chips on locomotives that were never designed to have them, nothing I've read so far has addressed that locomotives like mine have additional power pickups from the tenders and in the case of my little 0-4-0 I think the tender pickups are especially necessary. I want to be extra careful to not screw this up considering how much of a hassle it was to find spare parts to get them running in the first place, I think it would be impossible to pull that hat trick again.
Anyways any advice or tips or a direction to look towards to help me in this task would be greatly appreciated.
to the forum. Your intial posts are moderated, so it took a while for us to see it.
You don't want to lose the tender pick up, especially in a small steamer. People us a plug to connect the engine to the tender and usually there is more space in the tender for the decoder.
These pics may help with your Hudson. I don't see any installation pics on the TCS site for the 0-4-0, but we have knowledgeable folks here to help
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Yes, the power pickup from the tender is important. I would install wipers on all the tender wheels, on both locos. The original motors can work with a decoder, but I'm sure Mel will convince you to remotor once he chimes in. The original motors draw a fair amount of amps - a 1.5 amp decoder will probably be necessary for the Hudson. Some of those Rivarossi motors can also be a bit noisy.
Simon
Modern steamers with DCC all have pickups in the tender wheels as well. In fact, the decoder is typically housed in the tender. There's a 6 pin connector cable that connects to the locomotive, delivering power to the motor and the lights/smoke unit.
Here's a direction to look towards for your upgrades: ESU LokSound decoders. Best motor control and sound in the business, with great programming capabilities.
TubaJesusHey everyone, this is my first post here
Glad you are here.
I don't know anything about DCC, but I wanted to say hello.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Having discovered that my old Rivarossi steamers can run on code 83 track, I now have to determine what it will take to convert them to DCC and I found this thread on the subject. Unfortunately, not a lot of specifics. I should point out that the large steamers, which is mostly what I have, don't get pick up from the tender so that doesn't seem like a good place for the decoder. You can run the larger steamers without the tender. All the power and pick up is in the loco itself. I've looked at a couple other threads and they seem to be operating under the belief that the tender is powered. So it would seem that either the decoder needs to be installed in the loco or wiring run from the tender to the loco and the wheels of the tender modified to pick up power. Currently, there is no wiring. The centipede tenders don't have power pick up and the pin that holds the tender to the drawbar is plastic. One thread did point me to this which might be helpful.
Wiring For DCC - Decoder install into an Rivarossi HO FEF 4-8-4
I've looked at my other Rivarossi steamers and their Hudson and smaller do have power pick up in the tender but 4-8-4s and the articulateds do not.
JohnAre you sure the articulateds don’t have tender pickup? Every one I have but one has tender pickup. The only one without tender pickup was manufactured after 1990.From 1960 to 1990 all have tender pickup. I still installed the decoder in the tender of the newer one so that they are all compatible. The tender is perfect for installing the speakers.I use 1” Neodymium Magnet speakers in all of my Rivarossi tenders. Better than great sound!!!!
I use a heavy screen over the speakers covered with a finer mesh to prevent the speaker magnets from picking up metal particles from the track. The Rivarossi trucks aren’t the best at power pickup so I use Bowser 35107 trucks.https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2011/11/dcc-tender-modifications.html
Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California Turned 84 in July, aging is definitely not for wimps.
I don't see how there could be any electricity coming from the tenders. For starters, the axles are plastic and there are no wipers. The post that connects to the drawbar is made of plastic and has a plastic base. My Hudsons and all smaller Rivarossi locos have a metal post that goes into the drawbar and the drawbar has a bare metal wire running along side that hole so it will contact the metal post when it is inserted into the drawbar. There is no such wire in any of the drawbars connecting to centipede tenders. The Big Boy, Challengers, and Northerns all use the same centipede tender. The surest indicator that there is not tender power is I can run any of the large steamers without the tender. I don't believe that is possible with the smaller locos.
Maybe it is a unique feature of the centipede tenders and other articulated locos are configured like my smaller UP locos. There really is no need to have tender pick up with any of these since there is plenty of rail contact with just the drivers.
One more thing. The link I provided to show how to do a DCC install on an FEF 4-8-4 doesn't even show the tender. All the wiring is in the loco.
Sorry, I don’t have any Rivarossi experience with locomotives other than the Cab Forward and Y6B. From the early 1960s to early 1990s all of the Cab Forwards and Y6Bs were tender pickup.I just haven’t done anything the Rivarossi UP locomotives, I assumed all Rivarossi articulateds were built the same.I can make any of the early Cab Forwards and Y6Bs jump rope. I have kitbashed a half dozen of them and they are great runners. I have even scratch built early oil tenders and modified the Y6B tenders from coal to oil. I kitbashed a pair of Y6Bs into a pair of AC-3 Cab forwards and four AC-10 Cab Forwards into AC-9s.Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California Turned 84 in July, aging is definitely not for wimps.
I've managed to clean up and lube several of my big Rivarossi UP steamers after learning they can run on code 83 track. I've gotten them running but have notice several things. The tenders need added weight because they are very light compared with modern DCC tenders. Both loco and tender will hop a little when passing over turnout frogs.
It's nice to see these running again after so many years of collecting dust but I can't see them ever seeing regular duty on my current layout. For one, the UP doesn't fit my current eastern railroad and it would be too much time and money to convert them to DCC. I'll enjoy an occasional run using address zero but otherwise, they'll go back to the shelf. I am looking forward to seeing my Big Boy run again just as I was to seeing the real 4014 make its initial public run in 2019.
When I recently re entered the hobby, I purchased a couple dcc and dcc ready units and have been very pleased with them, but it bothered me that all my old favorite engines were just sitting on the shelf. I decided to see if I could update a couple so that I could use them on a limited basis. I knew that they would never compare, but I at least wanted the ability to control them with dcc. I have a Y6b that I re geared using NWSL gears way back before they made a re gear kit that has always been a favorite. I was able to add dcc w/sound using an inexpensive Digitrax motor decoder and a sound decoder that I picked up off of ebay. It may not be exactly protoypically correct, but I get a kick out of it chuffing around the layout. I also converted an 080 with good success, but have a little problem with electrical pickup.
......Paul
TubaJesusI've recently made the jump from DC to DCC.... I've found it surprisingly difficult to find suitable options for Hiawatha Hudson locomotives and little 0-4-0 tender engines.
As I recall, for this type of loco, I put the decoder in the tender and ran wires from the tender to the loco for the motor brushes. I just made the headlight always on straight off track power, as headlight from decoder would require another pair of wires. I'm having a hard time remembering as I've not done this specific conversion for over a decade.
I THINK I originally tried a decoder in the loco, and had issues with the wires hitting the drive shaft. Then also add the complexity of sound and then would have two wires going to the speaker in the tender.
There are many explosion diagrams for these locos on the HOSEEKER website that might help. I noticed many pages for the 0-4-0 when I was looking for this one.
https://hoseeker.net/AHMRivarossiassembly/ahmbuildersbiblepage036.jpg
The 0-4-0 engine should be easy to convert. The secret is to add all-wheel power pickup on the tender. Athearn offers a nice set of trucks with all wheel pickup. In these situations, I don't even bother powering up the drivers. A little extra weight on the tender, and it becomes a super reliable engine.
I've also connected my headlights directly to the rails in a few occasions. In one case, the lighting function of the decoder died, so that was fixed by using a permanent light solution. I was not in the mood for replacing an otherwise perfectly functioning sound decoder. All my locos are shut down on my layout (through switches on the control board) when not operating, so it's not a major issue.
I've used these:
https://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATHG61382
It says available April 2022 but I found some online.
Its not very difficult to convert any loco to DCC. Just throw away the existing electrical guts of it and get a TSU2200 or equivalent small-factor decoder and get all the wiring done anew. They make diesel and steam versions. I did that on several locos.
This will save a lot of time trying to find answers on something which was never supposed to be compatible with anything. In my case I decided to move on and embrace the new tech. Now I can even run all my locos from my Android. Wouldn't be possible with a 20-30 year old tech.