Ed,
I have one question related to Chuff wire. All my BLI steam locomotives use one magnet on flywheel with reed sensor positioned next to flywheel for chuffing. Therefore the number of impulses generated by reed sensor is much higher than is required for "normal" decoder (usually 4 impulses for 4 chuffs per wheel revolution). That requires that decoder recalculates impulses generated by reed sensor to generate correct number of chuffs per wheel revolution.
Considering the above, I assume you used "auto chuffing" feature of WOW decoder for chuffing, because, as far as I know (I have two Wow's ver. 3), this decoder does not have the option for recalculating reed sensor impulses to achieve proper cuffing rate. Am I correct?
Btw., I also intend in the future to replace BLI sound decoders with WOW/Tsunami2 because I am also not satisfied with sound quality, but also not with motor control capability.
Hrvoje
I have done this with several BLI engines but I started with engines that had their Blueline decoders. If you already did a K4 then you know what everything looks like inside.
I scrap any smoke generator. Just a useless accessory and a huge current hog to me.
Here's a Paragon3 decoder. Nearly identical to the P2 but has that piggy-back board with the blue antenna wire. As you have probably learned with your K4 you will have to hard-wire the TCS decoder, which is pretty simple once you have traced and identified the BLI wiring.
Above is a P2 board in a PRR T1. Once you have the wiring identified you're good to go. I used the existing BLI LEDs and speakers.
The diagram above is what I used. This is the T1 board.
This is the pin assignments related to my diagram. Using a meter will help you "ring-out" wires. The K4 headlight is easy to get to so you can use your meter set to Ω to figure out which wire is + and which is — for the headlight LED.
This diagram is for a non-smoke NYC Hudson. Use it for a general guide as BLI uses 7 or 8 pin plugs depending on the model. The NYC hudson and clones has a "chuff sensor" reed switch.
I am also very impressed with the performance and sound of the engines after the switch to the WOW sound decoder! I picked up several Blueline engines at a very reasonable price a few years back and now these retrofitted engines are among my favorites
Good Luck, Ed
Hi all,
I installed a TCS Wow into a BLI K4s that originally came with the QSI Quantum sound. I liked it so much, and TCS's Audio Assist, I am thinking of converting my other two BLI steamers to TCS Wow. Anyone who has worked on that, I'd love some ideas and tis on what to expect, how to go about the work. Can I reuse the original lights? Would I need to hard-wire? What harnesses might I need?
Thank you in advance,
Alvie