cudaken John, good job on the old Rivrarossi. Was it worth the effort? When I got started in this hobby I was looking for a affordable Big Boy and my LHS had some new in the box. ( 6 years later he still does) The owner said not to buy one, they where junk. Just wonder what you think about Rivraossi. Ken
John, good job on the old Rivrarossi. Was it worth the effort? When I got started in this hobby I was looking for a affordable Big Boy and my LHS had some new in the box. ( 6 years later he still does) The owner said not to buy one, they where junk. Just wonder what you think about Rivraossi.
Ken
I dunno. I think I'm mixed about it. This was my first dcc/sound decoder install into a Rivarossi. It was kind of a pain. The next one though won't be so bad, I'll know what not to do. One of this biggest challenges was figuring out how it was wired-- it seemed obvious, but then in the end it turned out not to be. It was only a little tip I saw somewhere on the web that said you need to cut a strap from the motor's brush to the frame. And then later, the a-ha moment hit me, you need to connect one side of the decoder (on the track in [-] lead) to the frame, and that was the last bit to making it work. I used the Soundtraxx DSD-something or other, the one with the articulated pattern. Being the first one and the non-obvious pickup, I ended up doing a lot more disassembly / reassembly than I would have preferred. I may have to do some repair / realignment work on one of the valve gear-- but either it came like that or else I fat-fingered it somewhere-- that shouldn't have happened. I think I got it straightened back out though (fingers crossed) and I'm hopeful some plain running for awhile will smooth it back out.
All told, the first one was a pain. The next ones, if any, won't be anywhere near so bad. The thing I really want to do with this one though is wire the tender trucks for power pickup. I think that will help smooth out its operation. I also put extra weight into the tender which helps it track much better too. I pulled out the original light bulb in the loco and replaced it with a grain of wheat bulb-- probably should have used an LED, would have if I'd had one sitting around. I also added a bulb to the tender-- it doesn't come with one out of the box. Both mods were also easy, though I'll probably switch it for LED's eventually.
The biggest issues, aside from figuring out power, were how to run the wires. I should have used a connector between the loco and tender, I didn't. I just hard-wired them with an extra length of wire, which is tucked into the tender. I used a bit of black shrink-wrap, cut alternately halfway across from the left and then the right, etc. to make a flexible hose to hide the wires. I drilled out the location on the tender where the coal autofeeder is-- it was almost the exact correct diameter, and fed the wires and shrink-wrap "hose" through that. So it looks like the autofeeder.
The one thing I would like to do, if I keep operating the loco, is to figure out where/how to repower it (the motor) and where/how to re-driver it. The drivers are pizza-cutters. Even the tender wheels were pizza-cutters. I tried to switch out the tender wheels but the metal wheels I have wouldn't fit right for some reason. So I'm leaving that for another day.
John
Thank you for the detailed answer John. Sounds like I won't be after the sitting Big Boys at my LHS. Hope you get the bugs worked out and enjoy it as much as I do my Y6 b.
Far as motors, ask Darth Santa Fe, he seems to have a handle on the motor topic.
Thank you for your time, Ken
I hate Rust
cudaken Thank you for the detailed answer John. Sounds like I won't be after the sitting Big Boys at my LHS. Hope you get the bugs worked out and enjoy it as much as I do my Y6 b. Far as motors, ask Darth Santa Fe, he seems to have a handle on the motor topic. Thank you for your time, Ken
Yeah, but I got it for about $40 bucks off ebay. I wouldn't pay much more for it.