rrinker See the link I posted from TCS. These are REALLY old Stewart F units, with Kato drives and the grey plastic Kato 'circuit board".
richhotrain rrinker See the link I posted from TCS. These are REALLY old Stewart F units, with Kato drives and the grey plastic Kato 'circuit board". Unlike other Kato locos liek the RS/RSC series sold by Atlas, these F units have screws holdign the palstic to the chassis. The Atlas/Kato locos have a psir of clips, which clip into the board repalcement decoders like the DASR, so I suspect there's nothign there to hold the board in place. I suppse you could double-side tape it on top fo the motor. Personally I direct wire whenever possible just because I'm a cheap Dutchman. Sticking with NCE, the D13SRJ is cheaper then a DASR, or with Digitrax, a DH165 is cheaper than a DH165K0. My F units are all newer ones that have the actual electronic circuit boards, but I remove those and hard wire even so. The Stewart/Boswer circuit boards are fairly simple and easy to figure out, but thsi is not true of all brands, and rather than mess around with figuroung out if the resistors for DC stay in teh circuit or not when just plugging ina decoder, I avoid it all and hard wire. For sound, n contest, removing all facroty junk makes the most space for the biggest speaker and enclosure. --Randy When you hard wire, such as the T1-LED, how do you keep that plastic packet from interfering with the motor and diriveshaft? Do you put those original boards back into place first? Rich
rrinker See the link I posted from TCS. These are REALLY old Stewart F units, with Kato drives and the grey plastic Kato 'circuit board". Unlike other Kato locos liek the RS/RSC series sold by Atlas, these F units have screws holdign the palstic to the chassis. The Atlas/Kato locos have a psir of clips, which clip into the board repalcement decoders like the DASR, so I suspect there's nothign there to hold the board in place. I suppse you could double-side tape it on top fo the motor. Personally I direct wire whenever possible just because I'm a cheap Dutchman. Sticking with NCE, the D13SRJ is cheaper then a DASR, or with Digitrax, a DH165 is cheaper than a DH165K0. My F units are all newer ones that have the actual electronic circuit boards, but I remove those and hard wire even so. The Stewart/Boswer circuit boards are fairly simple and easy to figure out, but thsi is not true of all brands, and rather than mess around with figuroung out if the resistors for DC stay in teh circuit or not when just plugging ina decoder, I avoid it all and hard wire. For sound, n contest, removing all facroty junk makes the most space for the biggest speaker and enclosure. --Randy
See the link I posted from TCS. These are REALLY old Stewart F units, with Kato drives and the grey plastic Kato 'circuit board". Unlike other Kato locos liek the RS/RSC series sold by Atlas, these F units have screws holdign the palstic to the chassis. The Atlas/Kato locos have a psir of clips, which clip into the board repalcement decoders like the DASR, so I suspect there's nothign there to hold the board in place. I suppse you could double-side tape it on top fo the motor.
Personally I direct wire whenever possible just because I'm a cheap Dutchman. Sticking with NCE, the D13SRJ is cheaper then a DASR, or with Digitrax, a DH165 is cheaper than a DH165K0. My F units are all newer ones that have the actual electronic circuit boards, but I remove those and hard wire even so. The Stewart/Boswer circuit boards are fairly simple and easy to figure out, but thsi is not true of all brands, and rather than mess around with figuroung out if the resistors for DC stay in teh circuit or not when just plugging ina decoder, I avoid it all and hard wire. For sound, n contest, removing all facroty junk makes the most space for the biggest speaker and enclosure.
--Randy
When you hard wire, such as the T1-LED, how do you keep that plastic packet from interfering with the motor and diriveshaft?
Do you put those original boards back into place first?
Rich
THe decoder I usually attach across the top of the motor with kapton tape. Wires? There's not enough loose wire to get tangled in anything. It's not hard to work int he small space - these decoders have 9 pin plugs so I work with just the wire harness, no decoder blob to get int he way of soldering. After a bunch of different locos I'm pretty good at figuring how much wire to leave, but if it's a different one, I sort of mock it all up so see what has to go where before cutting any wires to length. On some I've used parts of the factory board as a mount - a Walther's FA, I forget the exact deal inside there but I cut off a short bit of the factory board that screwed to the very rear of the frame and used that as a shelf. Even though the bluw and white wires ran the length of the loco to the LED in the nose, it's not droopy enough to get caught in the drive shafts. At least, it hasn;t in the nearly 10 years it's been since i put a decoder in it. And a few years ago opened it up to swap in a current T1 with BEMF, that old one was before they had BEMF in their decoders.
Protos, everything comes out, but they have a solid top to the frame so there's really no way wires could get caught int he moving parts. I actually have no AThearn BB so I'm not sure how I'd do those, maybe use miniature connectors and attach the decoder to the shell. Atlas/Kato I've done in the past I did use the TCS A series boards, all the ones I currently have do not have decoders yet, they need details and paint first, and at least some of them are getting sound. My brass RS3 has the decoder attached to the body with micro connectors, it came that way, I just swapped the decoder but it needs some cleaning up and the drive reworked, and I plan on putting sound in that one too.
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Mobilman,
As you maint. the drive train of your Stewart Kato drives check the geared wheels sets for any cracked axle tubes. I found several cracked ones over the years and as of a few months ago Kato still stocks replacement wheelsets.
If there were enough demand NWSL would do some aftermarket wheelsets for these drives, they machine and bore solid rod for their geared wheelsets. Regardless of the wheelset issue I still adore the smoothness of my vintage Kato drives.
regards, Peter
Alton Junction
While awaiting the arrival of the decoders & LEDs, I stripped down two of the units to "lube and tune" them. The Kato motor/chassis just amazes me. They have been sitting in a box for about 7 years, and before I oiled them up they ran just fine on the test rollers. Afterwards, I was very pleased with the noise free operation, and of course the low speed ability. I'm glad I kept these, and look forward to getting them wired up.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44I have detailed an older Stewart ABBA F7 consist and bought (couple of years ago) 4 NCE DASR decoders (board type) to install in them. Well, I finally got around to wanting to install the DCC decoders. Upon pulling the shells, I find that the DASR decoder boards are not appropriate for the workings that my locos have. What I really need is the "package type" decoder with the wires attached.
Upon pulling the shells, I find that the DASR decoder boards are not appropriate for the workings that my locos have. What I really need is the "package type" decoder with the wires attached.
Ha! Great minds think alike. When the subject of brightness was brought up elsewhere, I mentioned toning the face of the LED with a dab of thinned paint.
When I was a teenage motorhead, we would often pull the interior bulbs from our cars and tint the blue or green or red for "atmosphere"..................
Bright white? Those are the ones that look bluish. You probably won't like those. But you can use soma Tamiya orange paint for polycarbonate to tone it down and make it look more incadescent toned.
richhotrainWhat do you guys use for piping?
Rich, Since I retained the grey plastic board and orig. light bulb I used the orig. metal tube, don't know what material the tube was made of. If I end up needing a different size tube when LED installation time comes around I'll try a piece of alum. tubing.
I started with Standard Oil, but when I finished it was Chevron.
when detailing my Stewart F9A many years ago I installed an MV products lens, with the orig. bulb the lens always gave the emitted light a yellowish glow, so maybe a bright white LED will do for me as well when I get around to changing out the burned bulb.
On mine, I just used drop-in lightboard replacement decoders. I soldered extensions to the wires coming from the trucks so they'd reach. Easier than doing a full 'hardwire'...although I think I did that on one too.
HO-Velo,
Thanks for correcting my handle - removing the E. I spent 40 years in the earl bizzess, with the last 33 with Mobil and subsequently ExxonMobil (yes, that is how its spelled). And of course the 44 is my year of birth, making me a certified "war baby" and alas......... an old timer.
Oh, I ordered 20 of the bright white LEDs. As the decoders have built in resistors, I guess they will work just fine.
What do you guys use for piping?
Sorry for adding the extra E to your handle. If you're inclined to use TCS LEDs they may be able to give you sizes. Their tech folks are very helpful. Haven't had my old zero to one out in awhile, but it gave me 30 years of reliable service when I worked the "oil patch". "Oil patch" is what the oldtimers called the refinery, darn, now I'm one of them oldtimers, how'd that happen?
As for color - you'll probably want a golden-white LED. I use the Miniatronics Yelo-Glo ones, because they just have a tiny spot color folter over the diode juntion - looks like a bulb inside a clear housing. Unless you are modeling an old F unit still in service or restored for fantrip service sort of thing, then you might want the Sunny WHite color which is more like modern locomotives - but then you'd also have to add ditch lights and would need a decoder with more functions. If youa re doing F units in their heyday, the yelo-glo is the one. I always use 1K resistors, and they aren;t twoo bright, at least on Proto locos. On some of my Stewrats, it seems they use a better quality (more clear) light pipe and I've had to go higher than 1K to tone it down a bit. The Fs I have seem ok with 1K, not overly bright.
You can experiment with various values of resistors before final installation.
A 680 ohm resistor may result in an LED much brighter than you want.
A 1K ohm resistor may be the better choice, but it is all a matter of personal preference.
Also miked up a 3mm LED with flange, LED dia. .118, flange dia. .132
Peter
Mobileman, Just miked up a thru hole flangeless 3mm LED that I have on hand. .121 dia.
Mobileman,
I reused the orig. bulb, but it failed a couple months ago. Don't know that the failure had anything to do with DCC conversion or just bulb life. The loco had a lot of DC service hours having owned it for nearly 20 years. If you're wanting to use the metal tube, maybe a 3mm LED will fit the tube, if not maybe you can fab up a tube. Two popular colors of LED for loco headlights are golden white and sunny white, I've yet to decide what color I'll be replacing my failed bulb with. TCS suggests a 680ohm resistor with their 3mm LEDs and they also have a color sample on the LED portion of their website.
Good grief, my measurement is garbage. I didn't zero the micometer and got a 1 mm reading. Yikes, I should have known better. The actual measurement is 3 mm.
With that said, what will work?
The existing bulbs are in metal tubes. The bulbs are just a tad over 1mm. What color/type LED will work?
Also - forgive my ignorance - what would happen if I just reused the bulbs?
I use the T1's so much that a pack of 4 of them is a staple item on my Christmas list each year. I have about 5 on hand right now. Note sure what's going to happen int eh near furute, since I am moving soon, and it will be at least another eyar until I get a decent track plan designed and might be ready to build. In the meantime I might end up getting more locos completed, or I might just be too busy with hosue things to do any railroad stuff. I'm probably not doing my usual summer show with the club. Might give me the chance to whittle down some of the project list - besides what's on my web site I probably have 4-5 more things I never bothered to add there.
Thanks all for your input. It looked to me like the TCS T1 was a good choice but I contacted TCS to verify. "Dave" at TCS suggested the T1 basic or the T1 LED as it had the built in resistors for LED application. Soooo, I ordered 4 of them, and look forward to getting on with the long delayed project.
Thanks again!
richhotrain Anyone have any thoughts on the differences and benefits of the T1 compared to the MC2P ? Is one better than the other? Rich
Anyone have any thoughts on the differences and benefits of the T1 compared to the MC2P ?
Is one better than the other?
Yes, the T1 is cheaper.
Otherwise, they are functionally identical, other than physical size. Nice thing about TCS, the functions and features are stabilized across their line of decoders. Difference are all in physical form factor and total number of functions a given decoder has.
I used an MC2P in my 44-tonner, and also in Proto S2 switchers, but when there's room for the bigger T1 I just use those because they are cheaper.
Might matter, they have MC series with keep alives now, and an MC with KA might fit where a T1 without KA fits.
I can see why one would prefer a hardwire and not rely on the pick-up wire friction clips. I kept the grey plastic board/ friction clip to copper rod set-up thinking that it might make for easier removal of the truck assemblies for maint. Install was made over a year ago and no pick-up problems yet, but never did experience any pick-up problems with these units pre-DCC.
Those are the Kato drive ones, the grey plastic 'circuit board' is the giveaway. I'd just do the hard wire method and remove the plastic board. FT or F3 or F7, the Kato guts are all pretty much the same, though this seems a bit overly complicated: http://www.tcsdcc.com/public_html/Customer_Content/Installation_Pictures/HO_Scale/Stewart/stewart%20early.htm
Chopping the plastic in half to save the light tube - well, I guess that's one way to keep from lighting up the entire cab, but painting the sides and back of the LED will do the same.
Hi,
My 4 units are the type posted by HO-Velo - with the grey plastic piece on top, instead of the green circuit board as indicated for the other version of the Stewarts. It looks like the T1 1021 is what is used in the demo.