Vandy tenders for 2-10-2 and 4-8-2

[nyoun]

I am trying to use the C&O and SP hicken Spectrum tenders on the Spectrum 2-10-2 and both the light and heavy 4-8-2 (mix and match) with DCC.  Are the wireing protocols different between the tenders and the engines?  The harneses apear the same and fit from one to the other.  However, I get very strange results - the lights don't work, the engines will not run in reverse,  and the engines won't run except when the lights are "on", which of course they never really are!  I could be into a bad batch of Digitrax decoders, but that doesn't seem to be the likliest choice.  If the wiring harness protocol is the the problem, can anyone tell me how to reconnect the tender (male end) of the harness to the light board?
I do so wish that Bachman had used the standard DCC wire color coding in these tenders and in the stock tenders of the locomotives.  My old eyes have trouble differentiating between all the browns, tans, and oranges which are yet to make any logical sense to me.

[Atlantic Central]

nyoun,

Bachmann Spectrum tenders do not all interchange from loco to loco. Many on here will tell you to just swap the circuit boards, keeping each board with its original loco. I have a different solution.

Since you mentioned DCC, I would suggest you eliminate the Bachmann circuit boards and wire your decoders directly to the Bachmann plugs.

Or, you can rewire the tenders to match the loco in question by carefully reading the following and understanding which tenders work with which locos and which ones need plugs reassigned and/or lamps changed:

Tender Swap – Bachmann medium Vanderbilt oil tender (Item #89905) with 63" driver 10 wheeler (Item #82307)

Initial test using jumpers provided with the tender – dead short, no operation.

Original plan – move 10 wheeler circuit board into new tender. This proved unworkable for several reasons, 10 wheeler circuit board too large and wires too short to fit into Vanderbilt tender without major modifications to both the tender and the circuit board.

New plan – can existing circuit board from Vanderbilt tender be rewired to work with 10 wheeler. A simple examination of both circuit boards revealed that while different, they both have the same basic connections, so the problem must lie in pin assignments in the connectors.

Tracing wires and a few simple checks revealed that the two wire connector simply brings the loco pickups to the circuit board. Reversing the wires on one end of the two wire jumper corrected this. Now the loco runs but in the wrong direction.

Two of the wires on the four wire plug are the motor leads. Reversing them gave us correct operational direction.

This only left the front headlight. The circuit board in the Vanderbilt tender is for the 2-8-0 which has 12 volt lamps for lighting. The 10 wheeler uses LED's, this is the main reason the circuit board is different. Rather than trying to modify the circuit, I simply replaced the loco headlight LED with a 12 volt lamp.

Additionally I added weight to the Vanderbilt tender bringing it weight to about 5 oz. and replaced all couplers with genuine Kadee #148 on both the loco front and tender.

Result – loco now converted, runs well with original 10 wheeler draw bar and looks great. 

This issue seems to be tied to what tender came with what loco in the first place. I do not have all of the Bachmann spectrum locos, but from what I have seen, read and experienced, the following may be a good beginning of a compatibility chart:

Light Mountain & Consolidation will work with all of the "medium" tenders.

Heavy Mountain and 2-6-6-2 will work with the long coal tender, hicken tender and long vandy tender

Russian shares same tender with some 10 wheelers, so I am guessing they share the same circuit board.

The 10 wheeler is really a wild card here because it comes with three different tenders, depending on roadname. Some have the low, small "pre 1900" looking tender, some have the small tender from the Russian and one has the same tender as the consolidation, but obviously with a different circuit board.

The 2-10-2 tender is known to be different as well - no first hand knowledge here since I don't own one.

But again, I think most of these differences are just the pin assignments and the type of headlight.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

The 2-10-2 WILL NOT WORK with the Vandy tender.  You are lucky you didn't ruin your engine.  The ONLY way to make the 2-10-2 work with the Vandy is to swap curcuit boards.  This is fairly easy. 
The USRA heavy 4-8-2 is made for the Vandy tender - that's what the C&O J-2 version has.
Gene

[Atlantic Central]

Gene,

"ONLY" is a pretty strong statement here. I would suggest that if the 2-10-2 has LED headlights, that finding the correct pin arangement and moving the wires would work as well.

And, as I and others have suggested repeatedly, if you are doing a tender swap and DCC, why not just ditch the factory circuit board and wire the decoder directly? It serves no usefull function with DCC.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

Sheldon,
A person with limited soldering skills worshps the 8 pin NMRA decoder plug. <g>
I'm getting better, but I'll use it if at all possible.
Gene

[Atlantic Central]

Gene,

I do understand that idea, but once the wires are identified, my method of simply reassigning the wires in the plugs requires no cutting, hacking, juryrigging type of work, as well as no soldering. That is someting I avoid just like you avoid soldering. And my conversion of putting the medium vandy behind the 4-6-0 would have required massive amounts of soldering to swap the circuit boards - something I did not look forward to even though it is a skill I possess.

Think of it this way, if the tender was in pieces on the bench and you could assemble the plugs one way for this loco or another way for that loco, why would you cut and hack and have to rework tender backup lights that are made onto the circuit board that came with the tender? Well that is the way it is.  

With older locos like the 2-8-0 and the 4-8-2 light, the headlight lamp is an issue, but all the newer ones are all LED's so any tender compatiblity issue should be able to be corrected by plug wire reassignment.

Again, two wire plug takes loco pickups to tender, four wire plug carries motor and headlight back to loco. They are all the same in this regard. Only difference between incompatible locos is polarity and possibly headlight type.

Sheldon

[wjstix]

Well when I wanted to hook up a long vandy tender to a heavy 4-8-2, I just removed the two wires going from the circuit board to the tender trucks, removed the board from the vandy tender, moved the board (still attached to the plug etc.) into the vandy from the rectangular tender and (dare I say it? ) soldered the two wires back in place. Just plug the tender and engine together and they work fine.

[Atlantic Central]

wjstx,

Why? the long vandy tender works with the heavy 4-8-2 with no modifications. The circuit boards are electricly the same. What do you do about the tender light? I quess you just did away with it, didn't you.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

Exactly.  The 16V tender is for the C&O J-2, which is a USRA heavy 4-8-2.  TChe killer is the large USRA tender for the 2-10-2, which looks like the tender for the USRA heavy 4-8-2 and the USRA 2-6-6-2 - but it has a different curcuit board. 
Gene

[nyoun]

Well,y'all, I do thank you for your responses.
However no-one has been addressing my question, which was whether anyone could tell me the wiring color protocol that Bachman uses on these locomotives and tenders.
As a friend finally explained to me, and as most of your comments alluded to, my mistake has been in expecting that there IS a wiring color and location protocol, just because the NMRA has one.  Since Bachman's Chinese assemblers aparently use whatever color wire they care to on any locomotive and vary them from run to run, then my only solution is to mechanically and electrical trace the wires in the tender, on the boards (which also vary by locomotive type and run to run), and to the plugs, and diagram them.  Then "all I have to do" is make sure that the tender I want is wired just like the tender that came with the locomotive, being careful to note that the orientation of the plugs can also vary.  I have no fear of soldering.  But what started this whole mess was trying to hard wire a tsunami sound decoder into a heavy USRA Mountain tender only to discover that the color wires did not follow the NMRA standard protocol and that I, therefore, did not know which wires went to the plugs in what arrangement.
Now I am a lot smarter than I was.  And this has become a quest.  I will get these locomotives and tenders to all work as I want them to.  3 out of 6 are up and running and with careful workmanship I believe I will have them all arranged and working properly.  Model Railroading is Fun.  model railroading is fun.  model. . . .

[Atlantic Central]

nyoun,

Admittedly, I did not address the wire color issue. to tell the truth I have never even taken notice of the wire colors from loco to loco or run to run. The wires to the tender trucks make their purpose obvious, as do the other markings on the board.

While I am an NMRA member, and appreciate all they have done for the hobby, I may also be just old enough to not expect that level of "standardization" from any manufacturer. I wired control panels for machines in factories for years, we always used one color wire and numbered wires, never used color codes.

Seems like such a minor thing, this color code business that so many are now making a big deal about. Glad the info we all provided was helpfull.

Additionally, as I may have mentioned, I don't use DCC, so that is another reason I never gave the wire colors a thought.

Sheldon

[Atlantic Central]

One more thought on this wire color thing. If I had my way, all the wires going to and from the tender would be one color - BLACK - so that their appearance blends with the loco.

Many of the other manufacturers do this, Bachmann should too. I have considered painting the Bachmann wires and plugs and may get around to it at some point.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

Sheldon,
I've seen several with painted wires.  I just haven't gotten around to it.
Gene

[Jhanecker2]

Having been an inspector for many years , wiring codes do make a differents.   While  I admit that many things can be handled by simply numbering the wires ,  wiremarkers do fall off eventually .  I  do remember most of the connector  cables we  terminated  for Railroad Equipment
( Prototype ) were done in single color  with markers .    But we also made & terminated  cables that had well over  a hundred  pins and most of the cable wires  were colorcoded .    Since contact position and color code were specified  you had to make sure they matched . Thank God I had automated
equipment to do the continuity , hypot , IR  ; for some customers we even had to have print outs from the machine  to verify the results .