Life Like E9 with new motors, ESU Loksound decoders and lights

[Spalato68]

Hi,

 

I would like to present my two Life Like E9 locomotives in which I have installed new motors, lights, sound decoder etc.

 

New motors & worm shaft bearings

Instead of original motors I have used coreless Escap motors which have proved themselves in other locomotives (strong but silent, excellent motor control capability). The noise while locomotive was running at higher speed was very loud, and vibrations coming from locomotive were transferred to track and its support.

 

After new motors were installed, a relatively large amount of noise still could be heard. After a while I realized it was coming from worm shaft bearings, because bore in shaft bearings was too large for worm shaft. Luckily I found a fellow modeler who made new worm shaft bearings from brass. Despite that, some noise was still there – cause was the play between worm shaft bearings and gearbox seat where bearings are positioned (when I grabbed worm shaft with tweezers, shaft and bearing could be moved around inside gearbox/truck. The solution was to glue thin brass sheet (approximately 0,1 mm) on worm clip, to prevent movement of worm shaft and bearings. After this, noise practically disappeared – now only light noise coming from gears itself can be heard, which I find acceptable.

 

Lights and cab

I did not like the original lights arrangement. I wanted to replace bulbs with LED, and have dual headlight, as I found on pictures on the Internet for SP # 6051. Also, I wanted all lights to be separately controlled, including number board lights and cab light. I painted cab and engineers figures, I did not like it all in black.

I made dual headlights from light pipe (lens) and styrene profile, and used two warm white SMD LEDs. I first cut light pipe, then polished it, put in drill chuck (very small speed) and using heat (match) formed nice lens for dual headlight.

 

SMD LED’s for number boards were glued directly to original lightbody (I do not know how to call it otherwise), while lightbody was painted / wrapped in self-sticking aluminum paper to minimize as much as possible light leakage.

 

Sound install

I have used ESU Loksound 5 decoder with sound project “EMD Dual 12-567BC 2EXH NT“ as suggested by ESU representative (Matthew Herman). I used Visaton 32 mm speaker and baffle that is using all available space in locomotive, from cab till the end of locomotive. I used this speaker in other big locomotives, e.g. Proto 2000 Y3, Rivarossi Allegheny, Trix Big Boy and was always very satisfied with results. It goes deep enough to enjoy sound of diesel prime mover. As I have two locomotives (SP # 6051 and # 6052), the prime mover speed in second locomotive is set little slower than in first CV 261 and 262 is set to value of 124, default is 128). In this way it is possible to avoid unpleasant cacophony.

 

I am very satisfied with the result. Below are pictures of what I described above, and at bottom a video can be seen of single/both locomotives with small demo of sound coming from them.

 

First trucks were completely dissasembled and cleaned:

 

New motor installed:

Additional weight and basis for speaker and speaker baffle:

New worm shaft bearings:

Worm clip with brass sheet to keep worm shaft bearing from vibrating in its seat (this is clip for Athearn locomotive, but principle is the same):

New dual headlight:

New Mars light:

LED's for number boards:

Mars and cab light installed, cab and engineer figures painted. Light leakage restricted as much as possible.

Speaker baffle during construction:

Speaker baffle completed, decoders installed in both locomotives:

Video showing first one, then both locomotives:

Hrvoje

[snjroy]

Thanks for sharing Hrvoje. One of my LL Geep locos is noisy, but I always thought it was the motor bearings. I guess I should investigate the worms. 

I find interesting that you removed the flywheels... perhaps you are ahead of your time!

Simon

 

[Spalato68]

Motor bearings have a lot of play, so they are also noisy, due to huge flywheels that contribute to vibration too. But even with practically silent motor, there is still a lot of noise, therefore I concentrated to worm bearings and its seat/clip. 

In original version, locomotive was really noisy. At maximum speed this noise would make any sound decoder install useless. But on the other hand, for DC running, you can say there is even some kind of "sound" installed in this locomotive due to these noises, and original motor is indistructible - I think it can last forever. 

I set CV 3 and CV 4 to 150 - 200, and use brake function to stop the locomotive, so I come thru without flywheels. But I know most modellers like them still, it is a personal choice. 

Hrvoje

[hon30critter]

Hi Hrvoje,

Your workmanship is excellent! I love the lighting effects!

Do you have any more information or pictures of the speaker enclosure construction? I think I understand what you did but I'm not quite sure. I have a P2K E6 and a P2K E8/9 that I would like to upgrade following your example.

Thanks,

Dave

[Spalato68]

Dave,

I used lead sheets shown on picture above and fundament for styrene plate that is botom part of speaker baffle, and then have built the baffle along the locomotive folowing the shape of motor and gearbox of rear truck. It is like "patchwork" of many styrene pieces glued together, and then sealed with styrene glue and 2K glue if necessary. The most complicated part was to make recess for locomotive doors in the locomotive middle (above motor). I started from loco cab and then towards the rear of locomotive. It does not look very nice, but this is not the job of speaker baffle, it must just sound good, which I think it does. 

Lead sheets were used until clear of universal joint cup, all above was left for speaker baffle, following the idea - the bigger the baffle, deeper sound will go - it is a pity not to exploit as much as possible excellent recording and sound that new ESU decoder provides. Visaton 32 mm speaker was filed a bit, to be sure it will pass thru locomotive shell, and to enable easy shell install. 

I will try to find more pictures when I get home, and post here.

Thank you for your words - I am happy if my post inspired at least one modeller, or gave the idea to work on such locomotive, or similar one. That is I think one of greatest values of this forum - to exchange knowledge and experience. 

Hrvoje

[hon30critter]

Hi again Hrvoje,

So if I understand your explanation, you used the lead sheets to add weight and then built the speaker baffle over the lead sheets to fill the available space. Is that correct?

Dave

[Spalato68]

Dave,

I did exactly as you explained. Unfortunately I think I did not make photo of lead sheets in place and speaker baffle next to locomotive, but I can do it, I just need to open it - speaker baffle is movable, to enable locomotive maintenance.

Hrvoje

[richhotrain]

Very nice work.  That is quite an overhaul.

Rich

[Spalato68]

Yes it is, but I think, this model deserves it, having in mind the overall appearance and detail level of it and current available advanced technology compared to what was available when it was first manufactured (sound decoders, LED's, motors).  

I even replaced wheels because the moment I became a member of this forum i became aware of cracked gears in Life Like locomotives. So I bought 12 wheels upfront, not even checking the original ones. Of course, they were intact  Well, now I have even a spare ones. 

I forgot to mention, although it is probably visible from pictures and video: I have painted grabirons on locomotive front doors and windshield wipers, I looked at pictures of original locomotive, these parts are not red. I also painted pilots and diaphragms because I did not like red "plastic" color. I could not get exact match to other part of locomotive shell, but close enough. Little weathering could mask the difference completely, maybe I will do that in a future. 

Hrvoje

Edit:

Below is a picture i priomised, I hope now it is clear how the baffle was done and positioned. 

 

[hon30critter]

Thanks for the picture Hrvoje.

Dave

[richhotrain]

Excellent!