Congratulations, you made me do it.


AyTrane

AyTrane

Member
I finally converted to DCC, after 17 years of DC. It took some time to figure out how to program everything, and I still don't know how to get the mars light to go, but I'm working on it. I spent three hours overhauling one of my Athearn SD45's. I cleaned out all the old grease, soaked the parts to clean them, dried them, and re-greased and installed everything. I isolated the motor from the chassis and soldered wires to the truck towers. After about three hours I had my engine DCC equipped and running. I had to cut the headlight free of it's mount in order to isolate it, and used some styrene to mount the pieces back together while still keeping a gap. My CA glue was not setting up very quickly, so it must not be bonding well with the metal.

I also attempted to convert my Bachmann GS-4, but I need a smaller decoder as they packed as much weight into the engine as they could. I don't really want to run wires into the tender, that way I can still keep the engine in is cushy foam box. I had everything ready and realized the decoder was too big, so it's back in DC mode for now.

I did get around to installing a decoder into my Black Widow F-loco (F3 or F7, not quite sure). That was a very simple install as all I had to do was isolate the motor and snip a few wires running around, it works great.

I did run into a few problems, my Athearn started making a clicking noise up until it reaches about 70mph (too fast for my taste) I think I have located the problem to be in the front truck (maybe some solder fell into it, as they weren't making the noise before doing a little cosmetic surgery.

I'm still having problems with getting some of the solder to stick, any suggestions for type and where to get it?


Guess I have a lot of money to spend on upgrades. Cheers!

-Adam
 
Yep, I use 44 Rosin Core solder by Kester. Welcome to DCC. I just changed myself this spring after 30 years ! Been converting loco's like crazy. Learned the other day how to let the magic smoke out of a decoder (my fault ) If you have a computer near your trains use Decoder Pro , it's fantastic for programming loco's.
 
Good move, Adam. I still don't have all my locomotives converted, mostly because of sheer laziness rather than difficulty. I could probably finish them all in one day if I could get one day to work straight through.

I also use rosin core solder but find a little flux used before I flow the solder makes for a better joint with less heat.

Bachmann makes a decoder especially for the GS-4. It will fit in the small space you have available. You can also use just about any N scale decoder as long as it is a one amp decoder.

It sounds like you've done well so far but you will smoke a decoder or two. It's just the nature of the beast so don't get discouraged when it happens.

I see you haven't installed any sound decoders yet. You'll really thank us once you start doing that and realize you hate all your other engines that don't have sound. :)
 
My G-Scale Engines have sound, but I usually don't use them. I like the look more than the sound, but I'm sure I'll get some sound for one of my steamers one of these days.

I was able to get my mars beacon working, but I couldn't figure out how to un-program a CV value. I even tried reprogramming everything, but I still kept getting the Mars light to turn on rather than just the headlight. I had to reconfigure my CV120 value, but now the headlight stays on if I switch to reverse. I can still manually switch it off, but it's kind of a pain when I know it will do it automatically.

I'm hoping I never fry anything, but at least I'm getting the hang of it. All these Athearn engines are proving to be a little nuisance with the grounding issue, but I'm figuring ways around it.
 
One very important, sometimes overlooked step in soldering, is making sure you have a clean joint. Tarnish/corrosion, oil, or varnish is on the metals and this prevents making a good solder connection. You may need to take a file or knife to scrap away the outer surface to get bare metal. If the joint is clean and you have a properly sized soldering iron (~35watts), you should see the solder flow into the joint and wire(strands) in 2-3 seconds and without "puddling". 60/40 rosin core solder is a standard and should be good for all MR work. ;)
 
Congratulations on the step to DCC Adam. Keep working with it and you will be a master programer soon enough.
The soldering question has been pretty well answered here. Just some flaux will help make the solder flow into your material. Sometimes a little bit of fine grade sand paper, I.E. 400 wet and dry helps. Making the wire connection to the truck towers will help performance too. You might consider soldering a second wire to the chassis side of the truck as well so you have a solid connection rather than just a contact connection at the truck bolster. Yeah, a little more of a challenge, but hey, your programing decoders and rewiring locos already. Just bump it up a notch and show off your work to your buddies.
 
I'm not too sure I want to show off any of my work to my buddies. Last time I did that I got the ultimate track work test. A friend of mine cranked my throttle all the way up and had the trains flying. This wouldn't be so bad if my scenery was done, but right now I still have open framework and it's almost a 60" drop to the floor. Fortunately nothing derailed.I need to build some handrails on the lift out bridge across my doorway. My light container cars took a dump off last night (the containers, not the cars). My bridge wasn't quite in alignment at the time and one of the trucks jumped the rail.

I just bought a 15W soldering iron for soldering delicate wires, but I still have my 30W iron I had been using. I switched solder types as I had no idea what I was using, or where I got it, it's not very good stuff anyway. The new stuff will hopefull work better. On one of my towers I "scored" the surface and the old stuff still didn't stick. I think the soldering surface had to be hot enough to melt the solder by itself for anything to actually happen. Any tips on how to keep the wires away from the flywheels?


Look forward to hearing from me if I have any more questions!

-Adam
 
I think the soldering surface had to be hot enough to melt the solder by itself
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Adam, that is correct. You should always heat the metals before applying the solder. You can sample the heat by just touching the surface and see if it melts quickly. Make sure your solder tip is on both the wire and connection point. You will end up with a cold solder joint if either surface is not hot enough to melt solder. Also, make sure your soldering tip is clean. It should have a shiny thin layer of solder on it.

Sometimes, it is helpful to tin larger metal pieces individually before the final solder connection. Tinning is simply heating the metal and applying a thin layer of solder on it. This is also good for other troublesome connections.
 
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Rex is too good at soldering for me to beat any of his advice.:) As far as keeping the wires away from moving parts, there's the amateur way (wrap them with electrical tape) or the professional way (wires bundled in heat shrink tubing before soldering and then shrinking the wires into a neat tube). Most of us at least start using the amateur method and it does work, until the tape gets to be a few years old and starts to fall off. You'd be amazed at how fast one loose wire can ruin a decoder. I use the heat shrink method now. You can get assorted sizes of heat shrink tubing cheap at Radio Shack.
 
Keeping the wires off of the flywheels. I have tried several approaches to this. For the Athearn locos, I would glue the wire down the side of the motor then along the chassis to the truck where it would have enough slack not interfere with the truck swing. Sticky glue is good enough to keep it in place or the cyanalyctic if you really want a permanent solution.
As far as the containers coming off your container cars. You might consider glueing them on as well using contact cement. That way, if you want to remove them, you can. Usually not a graceful manuever or prototypical, but at least you can get them out of the container car or unstack them.
For the soldering work, a 35 watt iron may be more of what you need to use. 15watts is kinda light. If you really do fine soldering, you might consider filing down a tip for the 35 watt iron so it presents a finer point. Unless you are building decoder boards from a clean board and a handful of diods, resisters and caps, 35 watts should provide the right size blob. :cool:
 
Rex is too good at soldering for me to beat any of his advice.
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Ah shucks!:eek: Just 45 years of soldering:D.

Ken: you have to be careful about today's soldering tips. Most are now electro-plated with outside layers of nickel, iron, tin. If you file the tip you will remove this plating and lose some of the heat conductivitiy and the working life of the tip. Its best to buy a replaceable tip the size you need remembering that the smaller the tip, the less heat transfer.

As stated in an earlier post, 30-35 watts is what I use and is ideal for MR work. The key is to use a tip for the job: chisel for track joints, small chisel for wiring of 18-24 awg, point for soldering on LEDs or very small 28-30awg used on signals/lights.
 
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Thanks for the info Rex. I'm still using some pretty old stuff, so I wouldn't have noticed that. I think I've only got about 34 years of soldering experience. Still learning, I.E. a loose soldering iron will always gravitate toward exposed skin.
- Soft plastic is the perfect heat sink.
- The bigger the blob, the better the job.
- When you are in a hurry to do a quick soldering job, you don't realize the iron isn't plugged into a live outlet.
- A little grease never hurt a solder joint.
 
LOL :D I still review all those same lessons.....frequently:eek:

Speaking of old stuff, I have a fairly old Unger Princess soldering iron that I can't find tips for. All I have left is a sharp point and a sharper point which has made things darn difficult for hobby work. Guess I will have to look for any left over Christmas money:rolleyes: and buy a new Weller rig.

BTW: I would rather solder an IC any day over this danged ole 28-30awg stranded wire we use so much of in MR. ;):D
 
Well, at least we can plug the soldering irons into an outlet for power rather than heat them over an open flame.
 
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