A short post about the recent activities on the layout.
Connectors to the rack
The rack has been completed a while back, but the connectors from the rack to the layout still had to be installed. This is now done!
Switch motors
I've been focusing on making the two main tracks work. I already installed 4 switch motors a while back, so I have 9 more to install for these two tracks:
Installing those motors is not as straightforward as I would like to. I found that pre-drilling the screwing holes and pre-installing both screws helps a lot. Once the motor's wire sticks into the switch bar, it is then easier to hold the motor in place while sliding under the table and install another two screws.
Switch motors
As part of that exercise, I am also gluing all switches and tracks down to the roadbed:
Following my previous posts on interior lighting, I'm going to start this long endeavor by equipping the RIO Nord-Pas-de-Calais passenger cars from Lima with the ESU led strips.
Historic of a BB 16500 engine - typical for RIO cars: link
Links for the miniatures
I'm adding a new link to a blog about various options for interior lighting: here and here. There's also a video that shows what I'm trying to achieve:
ESU LED strips
I'm using the following items:
ESU 50709 - Digital LED lighting strip "yellow"
ESU 50707 - Power wheel pickup for LED lighting strip
ESU 50710 - PowerPack for LED lighting strip.
The led strip fits perfectly into the RIO car, so there is no need to cut any section. There's a toilet section in the car which will nicely hide the PowerPack; luckily the connectors on the LED strip are almost exactly above the toilet compartment. The main challenge is how to install the power wheel pickup ....
Power wheel pickup
Looking at the bogie, it seems that using ESU 50707 is the best option. I can put two of those back-to-back and fit them between the two axles. That bogie will pick up power from all 4 wheels.
I then need to carve the thickness of the ESU piece from the bogie:
I then need to make a path for the wires to go back into the car. I made a hole in the bogie and let the wires on each side of the coupler. I also opened the floor inside the car:
And from there, I just need to put the two wires through all the openings and solder them to the ESU power wheel pickups:
Opening this model is supposed to be easy: no screws, just move the body away above each bogie. Except for a cable on each that is connecting the body to the chassis:
Luckily, it was pretty easy to detach those, by sliding a flat screwdriver at the top and separate it slowly from the body. It didn't seem to be glued and would come off quite easily.
Once those two cables are separated from the body, I was able to pull/stretch the body from the chassis above each bogie:
You'd think the manufacturer would provide such details, but no. Here's a link to the manual.
Installing the decoder
To install the decoder, I have to remove the dummy decoder on the left and position the speaker in the round spot on the right hand side:
Since the decoder from Train Modelisme came with the speaker soldered to the decoder, I need to unsolder those and solder the round speaker onto the main circuit board as explained in the manual:
Even in analog, the engine is running beautifully:
I equipped this model with an ESU LokPilot V5 decoder purchased from Train Modelisme. To open the engine, there is a small screw underneath each bogie, so 4 in total:
In a previous post, I included a video from YouTube of an X76500 NPDC leaving the Ascq train station! I'm uber happy to now own that AGC model, with the identical numbers X 76709/76710!
The transformation was done by Rails Models Creation from an LS Models 10078 model with the sound decoder from ESU purchased from Train-Modelisme.
I had to update the names and icons of the functions on the ESU ECoS from this document, and here's the command screen:
And finally, here's how it looks - at the end I'm testing the interior lighting:
After the relative failure of my previous attempt described here, I'm now trying with two decoders from the same manufacturer and the same "source". I've purchased a sound decoder and a no-sound decoder from Train-Modelisme:
I installed both decoders and ran a running test, and - thanks to my awesome test stand - I could see that both engines are running in a very similar fashion; I, therefore, do not feel like further speed matching is necessary.
Command consist
Following the video from the previous post, I'm going with a "command consist". It means that both engines will have different addresses and that none will have a value in CV19. The consist will be created and operated from the ECoS Command Station.
When testing the consist, here's what I get:
The video is not super helpful because we cannot really see the lights and the running is not smooth. This last aspect is quite surprising because when I run those engines through the ESU LokProgrammer, it is very smooth, but not with the ECoS. I will have to investigate further once I can run the engines on the layout - hopefully, nothing is wrong with the ECoS!!
Consist functions
As you can see on the screenshot above, the command consist displays the functions from the first engine; in my case the functions from the sound decoder. Unfortunately, the no-sound decoder has a very different function mapping - see below. Therefore, as it stands F1 starts the sound on the sound decoder and starts the red lights on the no-sound decoder. In short, I cannot independently control the functions from the command consist.
Functions for sound decoder
Functions for no-sound decoder
After a little research, I've found a working solution based on the following video:
The idea is to add a consist function on the sound decoder and use it as an indicator on the no-sound decoder that it should use the "higher" functions such as F22 or so. In details:
The sound decoder has functions from F0 up to F20 - I did not change any of those
I've added the F21 function and an icon to the sound decoder; that function is not mapped to anything
I've added the F22, F23, and F24 functions and icons to the sound decoder; those functions are not mapped to anything
I've added "not F21" on all existing functions on the no-sound decoder
I've added the F22, F23, and F24 functions and icons to the no-sound decoder; those functions are mapped to white lights, red lights, and cabin lights "with F21"
I'll summarize with a few screenshots:
Sound decoder
Before consist
With consist
Functions
Mappings
No-sound decoder
Before consist
With consist
Functions
Mappings
And this works just fine as I can control white and red lights on each engine independently. There is still some work to do when reversing the direction: the side of the lights should remain the same and only the color should change.
On the ECoS Command Station, everything looks neat:
For complete success, I need to get to a smooth running and fix the reversing; next post!
I have a AM08 Desiro from Van Biervliet that I want to digitalize:
I plugged an ESU 59620 LokPilot V5.0 DCC, but the running was not smooth at all - similarly to what I experienced by inputting a "blank" decoder into the Piko BB 60000.
After a little research, I found this article on auto-adjusting decoders with CV 54: link. ESU actually released a video explaining exactly what to do:
Make sure the engine has 2 to 3 meters to run
Set CV 54 to 0
Press F1
The engine will run at maximum speed for a short period of time
CV 54 has a new value and the running should be smooth
And it worked beautifully:
The next step is to look into interior lighting for this AM08, but the goal of this post was about auto-adjusting decoders with CV 54.
One of the pre-requisite for consisting engines is speed matching. To run a test, I created a command consist and put each engine on separate tracks as my test bench allows for this:
Unfortunately, Piko's decoder seems to have the M4 protocol, so it's very different from the ESU decoder in the other engine. I've tried to overwrite the ESU settings with those from a different engine to have a smooth-running, but it didn't help.
At this stage, I've decided that I will use the Piko decoder in another engine. For my consist, I'm ordering two decoders from Train-Modelisme. Stay tuned!
