As a follow on from the body removal, but different subject, the loco was not responding, after getting the body off, cleaning the trucks and cleaning and adjusting the pickups (trucks to chassis), I find that I can turn the headlights on and off, but when I crank up the loco, it appears to short (NCE ProCab), I suspect a motor wire could have been touching the chassis (but seeing as how one broke off, I cannot vouch for it). I vaguely remember something about these DCC boards, removing the capacitor? the coils?, I would like to make any mods recommended before resoldering the motor wires, anyone aware of the answers please? I am certain there is no aftermarket plug & play board, is there a suitable alternative (not really worried about the lights).
I installed a TCS MZA4 with very little effort. Now my critter has great speed and momentum control. I would do this again in a heartbeat if I get another.
Sounds like the go, I have two of these, one is great except for the low speed control, so both may find themselves with transplants. Would the 70 tonner be in the same boat, as I have one of them as well, and the slow speed response is not fantastic.
Before you start swapping decoders, take a look at CV2 (vstart). For whatever reason, Bachmann likes to set that to 10 at the factory, and the end result is an overly rambunctious starting speed. Setting it to 0 improves slow speed performance considerably. -Mark
Agreed, I only have one, but the slow speed is quite good with factory decoder as Sppok noted. I'd add weight before bothering to replace the decoder to improve operation; there is room in the lower sides of the cab and on the bottom of the tank. Without filling the cab, using tungsten discs, mine weighs in at 44 grams/1.6oz. Improves pickup and pulling power. Have fun with the little critter, I think Bmann did a great job on this tiny DCC loco, and for a very good price. Otto K.
Hi - I'm just jumping into this old thread to ask anyone has any good experience/ideas for running one of these on a PWM DC layout? I am trying to convert one to be my first battery powered remote control loco and I don't know whether to bypass the DCC gubbins (or how to ID it) or to juts add my power feed to the body carcass as per the design. I am sort of assuming that my power will be delivered in a PWM stylee as it will come via an Arduino receiver. (these are all just words to me as my electric knowledge bank is pretty small) see the board below. thanks Donald:
I would trace the wires and try to bypass the DCC board if you want to go DC. I don't think Bachmann decoders have an analog mode.
PWM? I run mine on a DC pike. I fried the decoders on two of them, so I was compelled to by pass them. Actually, I took out the things and simply fastened the wires to the frame halves using the screws that hold the decoder in place. You run the wire to the opposite frame half for some reason. There is a user on another forum who did a tutorial on bypassing the decoder. He tells you to take out the thing. B-mann's factory decoder is supposedly dual mode, but, most of the B-manns that I have that have or had factory decoders run far better without the decoder.
thanks guys - I have just took out the board altogether and unfixed the power leads from the board. good idea re the screw fixings for the wires - i didn't think of that so got involved in some inconvenient soldering of tiny connectors. duh. (after having tried in vain to solder the tiny wires to the great big chassis sections... I'll look at the screw option when I redo the connectors - that would save two tiny connector wirings upshot is that I now have a 6v LiPo battery powered chassis that trundles its way around my layout at a sedate speed. tomorrow I shall see what the run life is like - I've run it for about 20 mins so far. then its a case of getting the wires fitted nicely through the body shell and then attaching the battery and voltage booster and the radio receiver to something appropriate like a trailing boxcar or gondola. I'll put up a short video in the morning when I start the time/distance trial. Donald PWM = Pulse width modulation. I think its a way of presenting DC power in a DCC form - blocks of power/frequemncy rather than smooth waves. end of my knowledge!
40mAh. I think it’s a single dell - it’s just one wrapped up thing with 2 wires coming out! It’s about 12mm square. I’ve a 5v booster to keep it going as it fades. I can put up a photo of all the bits. Donald Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Sorry - it’s a 3.7v single cell battery. Hence the 5v booster. ( it’s all unknown to me really!) Donald Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Wow, 40 mAh seems small. You could only get 80% out of a lipo before you kill it so you only have 32 mAh. I'm surprised you can get 20 mins. Sounds like a very efficient motor with very little load on it (due to gearing).
well the running trial on a fully charged battery is now at 30mins and carrying on... a few short video links (hopefully these links are allowed...) shows the speed at 3.7V - looks fairly realistic to me. I will time a circuit. Also last video shows a bit of unexpectedly non-level track... :
1hr 35mins of continuous running at a fairly constant speed pushing the two cars shown in the videos took the little setup to a grinding halt. Speed was fairly constant - dropped by about 10% after just over an hour and a half and then fell off a cliff in the last 5 mins. Presumably I would get a little more out of it when I get the voltage booster attached. I have a second cell as well that I may add into the mix. I realise that I've strayed fairly far from the original meaning of this thread and should probs be appearing in the workbench thread. I'll maybe start a thread there when I get to try and put the rest of the stuff together and turn it into a model loco again. Donald
Donald, this is amazing and very interesting!!! So the battery is directly hooked up to the motor? No speed contoller, etc? I'm very surprised that it ran that long on a 40 mAh battery. What loco is it? I definitely think you should start a separate thread. Don't forget to repost your previous post with the videos. I'm very interested in this!
will do. I have a r/c controller to hook up in due course. In fact I have a lot of gubbins: the loco is a Bachmann 44ton switcher dating (I think) from 2008, originally with DCC onboard.
