Why would you want lights on a B-unit?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I've never seen a Proto dummy unit, so I have no idea how they supply the trucks on those. On the Stewar/Bowser dummy units I have, they have the same metal wheels and all as the power units, simply minus the motors and gears and it is a simple matter to solder wires to the trucks to get power. Worst case, you may have to rig some wheel wipers to pick up power if they leave out the pickups. It might be possible to purchase the pickups as spare parts and fit the standard powered unit pickups to the dummies, too.
No reason to add a motor, you'll have more space for a BIG speaker and enclosure. Fit the biggest thing you can, the sound will be that much better. To program though, you may need to fit a resistor on the motor leads. Use a 2-pin connector so you can take it out, there's no need to leave it in once the loco is programmed. If you DO leave the resistor installed, set CV 2,6,5 to 1,2,3 or set a speed table with all 1's across the range so little voltage gets applied to the resistor. This will keep it from getting hot. Lights and sounds should work just like it was installed in a regular powered loco.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I've put Digitrax SoundBugs into a couple of dummies. They are sound-only, no motor, no lights. The engines I put them in were ancient Athearns. Some were always dummies, and some were gutted rubber-band drive units, but all were equipped with metal wheels and trucks, making the hookup job easy.
SoundBugs are very inexpensive, but the sound quality is strictly 8-bit. Digitrax also makes some sound-and-lights decoders, but those that I've tried have very low sound volume and I would not recommend them. Then again, those were all purchased some time ago, so the company might have better models available now.
I am running in DCC, of course.
Thinking of adding a Proto 2000 PB unit to my PA. The P2K PB is typically a dummy unit.
Question #1 is power. I assume that there is a way to pick up track power thru the trucks. Any thoughts?
Question #2 is the motor, or lack thereof. My thought is, why bother adding a motor, just add a sound and lights decoder. Any thoughts?
Am I under thinking such a project?
Rich
Alton Junction