I'm switching to DCC and want to put a D13SR NCE decoder into an old Mantua steam engine 2-8-2. Is there a way to install it without using the tender as the ground and keep the decoder in the engine body?
Most steam engine installs are in the tender but you might shoehorn the decoder into the loco. Some have done it with tank type steamers.
Below is a link that might show you a few possibilities.
http://tinyurl.com/mb5t3h9
Blow is a link to TCS decoders that shows some installations. Scroll down to Mantua.
http://www.tcsdcc.com/public_html/Customer_Content/Installation_Pictures/HO_Scale/HO_Search/search.html
Open up the loco and do some measuring is the first thing I would do.
You will still need the opposite polarity connection form the tender or modify the loco to pickup from both rails.
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.
That is some good reference material, Rich. I would like to have a pickup from both rails in the engine. Any suggestions as to how to do that?
I've used thin PC board material I attached to the bottom between the drivers and solder on wipers for the drivers. This gets both sides of the drivers to pick up. You may have to grind out part of the pc board to avoid a dead short.
Richard
Great. I will try that. Thanks for all your help and advice.
I have use thin copper clad PC board and used Kadee #5 coupler springs cut in half.
Some use small diameter Phosphor bronze wire.
Usually all the drivers on one side pickup power and use the frame.
I did that with a Mantua 0-6-0T loco. I used a Digitrax DZ125 decoder in the loco. Hard wired. Very small 1 amp decoder. TCS has some very small ones also.
As long as you're doing so much work, why not consider sound? One great thing about tenders is all the space available for both a larger decoder and a speaker.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
It's always a good idea when first trying a new engine with a decoder, or an engine you've just installed a decoder in, to put it on the programming track first. If it reads back a CV OK, then you can go ahead and adjust the CVs to add the engine no. etc. If it doesn't read any CVs, it means there's a problem you need to fix - or there isn't a decoder inside it. If there's a problem, like a short circuit, the programming track power is lower than regular track power, so you won't fry the decoder.
I haven't started work yet, but the suggestion was made that as long as I'm going through the trouble, why not get sound. So I will buy a sound decoder and install it in the tender and take the D13SRS NCE decoder and put it into one of my old diesels. How is this idea for the steam engine- isolate the motor with tape and a nylon screw, then reverse one of the tender trucks and isolate both trucks with nylon washers and screws and solder wipers onto each truck then red and black wire to each. That way I would only have four wires running to the engine instead of six.
For pretty much any locomotive, you want as many power pickup wheels as possible. It sounds like your plan is to run everything off the two tender trucks. That's not the best way to go. Run the extra wires so you can draw power from the engine and the tender, and you will have a better-performing engine.
As was said, driver pickups also. DCC is quite sensitive to intermittent pickup. Think turnouts where many have issues.
Below is a link about DCC and DCC with sound. Look at everything. Look in Curiculum about sound installs.
http://www.mrdccu.com/
Below is a link that might help for all wheel pickups on the tender. I use his idea.
My Roundhouse DCC steamers came with all wheel pickups on the tenders, plus loco drivers. Yes, six wires.
http://www.55n3.org/cars/tender_wipers/