George at Sountraxx told me I could use the tender body as a speaker enclosure. My guess is that you would need to seal the joint between the body and chassie, to get this to work right. I think thi is because sound from the back of the speaker is out of phase with the soiund from the front?!?
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
You're welcome, Mark.
Yeah, the prices on keep-alives aren't outrageous, but space in a narrowgauge tender is...wait for it...priceless.
I'm certain someone will come along and tell us they stuffed everything in there anyway. More power to ya...but I reached my patience with stuffing just adding the Tsu, speaker and enclosure.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Great idea for a thread, Mike! Thanks for doing this.
The TCS Keep Alives run from $21.50 to $26.35 and can be a part of their decoders. The Current Keeper from Soundtraxx is $19.95. These prices are from an online discounter.
Here's a link to one of Laurie McLean's videos that show a wiper install on a HO UP 4-12-2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cvpveqBQnQ
For lots more on everything from SMD LED installs to animation, see these:
https://www.youtube.com/user/scoopmmr/videos?sort=p&shelf_id=0&view=0
Mark R.Then I started using TCS Keep Alive modules. Solder two wires and no more need to install wheel wipers and all the extra wiring ! Smile, Wink & Grin
That works if:
A. Those are in the current budget.
B. There's room for them on board. In HOn3 narrowgauge, that's hard to arrange with many locos.
Finally is my Sunset K-36. Here's the loco:
And the tender:
Here's a closeup of the front mount on the loco.
And the rear wiper mount.
Note that the wipers here are Tichy .020 P-B wire. It's an experiment I probably won't repeat, as they're just not as flexible. They are more robust, though.
Next is my Sunset K-28, where the same general set of goals guided the install. Here's the underside of the loco and it has 3 wipers on the black/left side.
I used to do the same thing at one time on brass steam sound installs with excellent results.
Then I started using TCS Keep Alive modules. Solder two wires and no more need to install wheel wipers and all the extra wiring !
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
I learned about adding wipers to DCC/sound installs in steam locos from a skillful list-buddy of mine, a MMR from Australia named Laurie McLean. You may have seen some of his videos before, where this wizard of DCC works his arts on many a neat little loco, and I'll link to a couple at the end of these posts.
Here I want to document my wiper installs for a forum-friend here, NP2626, who is contemplated his own installs. This will be mainly pics, but feel free to ask for more details or explanations for what's seen in the pics. While not particularly photogenic, I did seems to improve some each time. I'll do the Westside C-25 first, then post my Sunset K-28 and K-36 in subsequent posts just to kepe things organized.
Here is a pic of my very first wiper on the C-25, a somewhat flawed effort to do two at once. It was too long and delicate, but worked until it suffered the ignominious fate of many wipers, snagging.
I went to the trouble of drilling and tapping a screw to mount the wiper base. Any more, I either CA them or use an existing screw. The base is simply a small bit of PCB tie material that provide a mount, insulation, and a place to solder the lead and the wiper. The wiper itself is formed from Tichy .010" phosphor-bronze wire (293-1101).
Here's how it looks today, with just one operational wiper on the loco. I've also had them on the 2nd and 4th axles, but right now it's running OK with just the one, so it's all good. The objective is to add pickups for the black/left side, which on most steamers isn't used at all, as they are insulated so as to only pickup on the red/right side.
And here's the tender...
For the tender, there are two objectives in adding wipers. First, you do the opposite of what was done on the loco, adding wipers on the red/right side of the trucks, as in most steamers there is no pickup on this side mirroring the way the loco is set up. But you should also think about doing the black/left side. It normally is set up to draw from this side, but this is done through the truck bolsters and is a perpetual source of grief/poor contact. Adding wipers on both side and hardwiring them solves both issues. When both loco and tender are done, this steamer has 16-wheel pickup.