Changing electrical pickups

[nfmisso]

John;

You don't want to change the pickups, you want to add more. First make sure that the pickups that rub on the drivers are not bent or kinked improperly. If kinked, call Bachmann's service/parts dept for replacements.

Next you want to add pickups to the tender if they are not there, see the articles on adding pickups to Life Like Proto 2000 0-8-0 in various magazines. Just follow those instructions for your Spectrum locomotives.

BLI is not currently selling anything seperately, you'd have to purchase a whole locomotive. If you are good a soldering, it should not be much trouble to switch the connectors, after you determine the pin outs on both. Hint: all of you determining should be on the locomotive side, the BLI board will not take kindly to being probed with a multimeter, and I am pretty sure that would not be covered under warranty.

[Anonymous]

I have several Bachmann locos and while they run OK, They are very sensitve using DCC and sound decoders I thought I may need to change the pick ups for better contact. So is this an easy task?
An alternative I would like to explore is using the tender and sound system from Broadway Limited if available. These locos are awesome! I thought I might get by changing the plug on the Bachmann 2-8-0's to BLI's. Nay thoughts?
John