I went and installed the QSI Turbine decoder, made the light work installed the speaker, man this engine is making noise, headlight works now, wowers! I am close to shooting a decent vid, so I decide to test the engine out. I set the decoder to standard op (no coasting-brakes) and sloooowly backed the engine around the layout, BEMF,,, neeto. Crawls to the backside of the layout, one spot on the layout, it stalls. Fidget the throttle, runs, backing up sloooowly, runs to the front and I made a full circuit.
So I decide to go forward...sloooowly, it runs... gets to the same point of the layout with the earlier problem...stalls, no power, fidget with the DCC, no luck, light comes on, no power, then suddenly FULL THROTTLE ZOOM...KILL POWER.
I can't make it run, no sound, reset, nuthin. I just emailed QSI, see what.
I have this digitrax 4 amp decoder I got for my NWSL Lil Joe, I will retro it to the Jawn and buy another (or 2 4 amp decoders)
maaaannnnnn
I decided to give the engine some full runing tests around my loop, which recall, is lumpy. It would probaly give a 6-8-6 rigid frame the goosies, anyways..
I coupled to my new passenger shorty cars, with the 2 water tenders, and took off slowly. Seems to be fairly fine, rear trucks derailed on the back switch, rerail, then it runs around the front to a switch and 24" radius curve and the track is loosish from lack of maintenance, ...it dies, short.
hmm, well, I nudge the engine....no...still short. I nudge the tenders...RUN!..short.
well, recall the perfectionist brass engines these are with neat metal details between the cars, they touch between the tenders. SHORT. I flip the rear tender around to get the powered wheels lined up so they don't short, RUNS. Fixed the track. and ran some loops... zero problems.
Well, I am thinking of putting lights in the tenders, make them headlights work, it'll stop the shorting if I can isolate the trucks, add extra pickups, and thatll fix that. see how this goes...
so far so good tho...-thumbsup-
I finally isolated the front truck and wired the trucks, it killz 2 birds with 1 stone, runs without hitches.
It looks like I am ready to DDC/sound/light it up. Already have the QSI veranda turbine decoder, I have the Veranda itself with sound, and I can turn off the engine sound to get a more turbine sound, plus I bought the programmer, so maybe I can insert the proper sounds sometime.
thanx for the kudos, its a patient and doing some brain jogging on the problem solving, and doing each solution in a careful methodoligical way.
Heres the thrill of your work done, excuse the quality, my fav camera seems to have gone on the blink, so I used my alternate camera (but I have a different camera to make a high quality vid)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKJg3NGigFk
You can put a front coupler on the engine, it has a removeable plate with a screwhole for the coupler.
I actually only electrically isolated the rear truck, but the quaiity of electrical conductivity now on the rear truck rears its ugly head on the front still using the truckmounts for track power, it runs to some point and stalls, so I nudge it. My little walkaround throttle (DC) has a light on it and I can tell if it shorts or opens.
I think I have found and killed the major issues on the engine. Operationally on my layout I plan to run it once in a while, but my stalwort engines are still my Y6b's.
When I found these engines were showing up on ebay, I made the choice I hadda go for it. Not cheap either.But your usual brass engine problems based on older tech designs. Not everybody can own one of these, but thats why I am open to share here so you too can experience it and not hide it away.
Dinwitty,
I have enjoyed reading your thread, & never knew about such an engine, & let alone a model of one.
So I can only say: Kudo's to you for making one a working model for an 'average' (i should say usable & working) layout.
I find your effort & work inspiring & am very hopefull that you get that unit tuned in, you have made an incredible effort!! Other folks may not even had the 'sand' to attempt it!
Awesome work!!!
Isolating track power from the body frame. When the tender is coupled to the Jawn there are details right around the couplers on the engine and tender representing water feeds, whatever. With a live track power tender and a live sub-frame truck, these details are gonna touch, and the little note that came with the engine notes this also. woops, design fault left alone on purpose.
There are shouldered screws attaching the trucks to the sub-frame with a metal height washer. Passes all current upstairs for the motor. Cant do that, leaves the subframe "powered".All brass engine-tender....ZAP.
I needed plastic shouldered washers. None to be had around here or the electrical world out there, very hard to find, big scrounge time to find that, go search, run around pay for it go home... etc etc.
BUt... I have lots of unused Kadee coupler pockets. LOTS. Well, these things are built tough for couplers, maybe....
I cut off the lip off the flat pocket with the coupler pivot, thats the key, this pivot. I inverted the flat letting the pivot "divot" extend up glueing it to the coupler box, this makes the spacer needed. This fit perfect in the truck mount hole for the screw. The original shouldered screw does not work here. I found some screws to fit and used them, the "pivot" separates the screw from the body.
It works. Track power isolated from the sub frame, now I will run wires direct from the truck.
back after more work done and testing.
overNout
After some breakin running, it was running quite free with some occassional burps, dunno yet.
But the engine is traversing 24 inch radius. Nice!.
So I put the shell on, and do a test run,
erkkk, its crucking on the first curve. I look and look, there are details on the shell that represent truck supports, they are jamming on the trucks. errrggh! I look check...uhmm, okay I guess I need to raise the shell somehow...washers on the main pivots? then I realized the main pivot for the trucks, the "washer thingy" is thicker on top than underneath, so I flip it around,...that raised the body shell. Shell back on..teeny screws all over again...er, why cant I get the shell on right..ooh,,, wire hanging out, unscrew...fix wire, screw screw screw....
back to the track, check it, it ran the curve... it ran the back track, it flew over the back turnout peco #5.
YAY. dang. cool! I am having a hard time making this engine do a herky jerky and it aint. Kudos!!
So I try the tender and aux tender on it... SHORT!
metal kadee couplers and chassis not isolated electrically. The end pilot is live on the Jawn, the tender is prolly also live.
New project-problem, that'll be later, Jawn trucks may have to get isolated from all framing somehow as well as the tenders. Both tenders have headlights, these are jewels, but you know me, out they go and real lights. Maybe I can find all wheel pickup trucks to replace the existing ones, and put DCC light control in them. Extra note, when turning the Jawn henry, they only turned the engine, the tenders did not turn. Jawn too big anyways for engine-tender turns. Tenders supplied water only, coal was on the engine ahead of the cab.
If they were able to persue the steam turbine design further it woulda worked better to make a full tender with diesel trucks on it and make the engine just boiler/turbine, then you have more a basic diesel design with a C-C, C-C wheel arrangement, and not this clunk huge engine.
overNout this time.
This forum still has problems, I can't load the old thread, 56k, even in chrome.
look for the other thread for more info.
I switched out the other plastic knurled "universal" connection with the modded NWSL universal.
Big difference, the trucks now are not stiffenned by the connector. No more plastic knurled connectors.
Change of the trucks big improvement. No shorting, now just some electrical -opens- concerning getting power thru the truck connectors, I usually run wires straight to the trucks so thats next and simple.
The engine needs -running- breakin after all this. I made it a point to work on this engine today, off day zero in on this problem child. Mucho bettero, took about 2 hours for the truck changeover, but you have no idea how long these things take, I just go at it, it coulda taken all day, glad it didnt.
so, if you happen to own one of these babies from ALCO, you better do what I just did, or else keep it on 40 inch radius and number 10 turnouts. Still the rubber connectors is the shizz, go get the NWSL universals and switchem. The box had replacement rubbers and I did that, nopers on that solution.
All the gears still make it a grindernoise, but I am going forward with DCC/sound as is as doing the underfloor wheel motors needs different style sideframes, trimount truck sideframes not an easy find at the moment, the only engines non-Jawn Henry using them were the AS-616 of Baldwin, Bowser has that engine but not always that truck so I gotta do some emailing or parts searching. I'll get the some of those traction motors and tinker around on them. Soonish I hope to have a video of the Jawn Henry after all this workovers. I think the engine can do something serious now.
overNout.