For anyone interested in some background on Tyco and what they produced, this site has quite a bit of useful info:

http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrains/

Len

Quote from: jward on March 17, 2011, 09:09:41 AM
if you want to get away from the shiny plastic look, repaint them. who needs a shazam boxcar anyway?.......

Many of the old Tyco cars actually have reasonably accurate paint schemes. In fact, there were a couple I've never seen anyone else do. And it's easy enough to strip, paint, and reletter the few that aren't.

Some new trucks, body mount couplers, a bit if dull-coat, and some weathering can result in some nice cars for the layout. If you want to get real fancy, there are books around, and articles on the web, on superdetailing 'Blue Box' Athearn freight car kits. The same techniques would apply to old Tyco cars.

Len

Quote from: Doneldon on March 11, 2011, 09:48:34 PM
Len-

A minor detail but a 22" radius curve has 22.5^o of curvature.

                                                                             -- D

Oooops! Typing too fast and got an extra '2' in there.

You still chop the one piece into 2 pieces with 10deg arcs though.

Back when I was doing an early layout, I took a piece of poster board and drew 15, 18, 22in radius quarter circles on it with a yard stick "beam compass". Then I drew lines from the center point outward every 5deg of arc.

If I needed a 15deg 22in radius section, I'd lay it on the appropriate curve, line up the center line, and mark the cut location, and chop it off. I thought about adding additional arc lines, but it's easy enough to 'eyeball' the inbetween locations if you needed a 13deg arc section.

With plastic roadbed track I cut through the plastic with a 52TPI Zona saw, then snip the rails with a Xuron track cutter. This leaves minimal clean up to be done with a small file.

Len

Took a shot at it with RR-Track, and this combination appears to work for making a passing siding with #6 turnouts with four 9in straights between them:

Cut two 10deg arcs out of a 22in radius curve. A full piece has a 22.25deg arc, so the pieces would be a little shorter than a 1/2 section. Use one on each of the turnout diverging legs to bring them back parallel with the main.

The passing track is made up of the following straight sections:

9.00in - 2
4.50in - 1
2.25in - 1
2.00in - 1
1.50in - 1

Once you have the basic configuration, you can add additional straights to the main and passing tracks as needed. Just use the same additional pieces with both.

Len

Quote from: jward on March 10, 2011, 09:51:14 AM
it should be noted that it is the talgo coupler mounting that puts the side pressure on the trucks, not the couplers themselves. this is true no matter what type of coupler you use. but body mounted couplers, especially on older cars from tyco, ahm, etc. can be difficult to install....

Not to argue, but because of the built in spring design, just sitting on the track the X2F couplers snap to one side if you pull them to center and let them go. By design, if you pull a properly installed truck mount knuckle coupler to one side and let it go, it snaps back to the center position.

The offset spring of an X2F coupler exerts opposing side pressures on the truck assemblies when coupled, whether moving forward, standing still, or moving in reverse. Combined with the backing pressure of the couplers on the trucks, this side force makes reversing moves with X2F couplers, even when body mounted,  more problematic than with truck mounted knuckle couplers.

Like I said above, eventually you'll want to go all body mounted, but in the interim truck mounted knuckle couplers are still an improvement.

Len

The Kadee #212 'talgo' adapters are also sold by the pack, for use with any Kadee, EZ-Mate, or McHenry coupler.

There's also the Life-Like "SceneMaster" knuckle couplers for quick conversions of Tyco, Life-Like, etc., cars until body mounts can be done. These are the cars with the small hole X2F couplers that can be popped out of the trucks with a twisting motion.

You can get them from Walthers in either a 10 pair pack, 433-1427, or a 2 pair pack, 433-1436. On most cars you either need to trim the 'stop blocks' from the front opening of the coupler pocket, or snip off about 18in of the centering springs on each side. I usually snip the centering springs.

Eventually you'll want to switch to body mounts. But if you're like me, with a bunch of the old cars around, the Life-Like couplers are a quick way to eliminate the side pressure on the trucks X2F couplers create.

Len

Even if you can't change to metal wheels right away, you should pick up a 'truck tuner' from either Micro-Mark or Reboxx. It has an angled reamer on one end that cleans out the journal hole, where the wheel axle ride, on plastic trucks.. You'll find your cars roll better after using it, especially with metal axles. But even with the original plastic axle wheel sets will perform better.

This is the one from Micro-Mark:
http://www.micromark.com/HO-Truck-Tuner,8241.html

This is the one from Reboxx:
http://www.reboxx.com/Tools.htm

Reboxx is also the place to go for wheels with odd axle lengths or end shapes.

Len

If you really want smoke in an HO loco, check the train shows for an old American Flyer HO steamer. They had a smaller version of the piston type smoke unit used in the AF 'S' gauge locos. Smokes like crazy, and the piston set up makes a 'chuff', 'chuff', sound as it runs with no electronics.

Len

If you'll be adding power pickups to a lot of cars and locos, you can get phosphor bronze sheets from Micro-Mark:

http://www.micromark.com/Phosphor-Bronze-Sheet-5-Inches-x-7-Inches-Pkg-of-3,8335.html

The picture shows a rail slider made from a sheet, but personally I prefer using straight strips as axle wipes for HO. Especially with 6-wheel trucks that don't leave much room for a rail slider.

Len

Anyone who want to operate more than a basic loop of track eventually needs to be able to add insulated rail joiners to create blocks, or terminal rail joiners to power those blocks. So why does Bachmann essentially tack weld the rail joiner to the rail on EZ-Track, making them such a royal pain to remove anyway??

And yes, I know there is a straight 'gapped' section of EZ-Track that Bachmann looks at as the answer to creating blocks. But too often in the 4x8 world gaps have to be added to curve tracks, and it shouldn't take a Dremel with a cutoff disk to do it. Especially since normally, except with EZ-Track, it's a simple matter to pop off a rail joiner and add an insulated joiner where a gap is needed. Same goes for adding a power feeder to places a full terminal track doesn't work, e.g., on 22in radius curves.

Len

Sounds like you may have 'Normally Closed' push buttons instead of 'Normally Open'. Or you may have a solder bridge between push button terminals.

You say you wired according to 'member directions', but don't include a link to those directions, so no way to verify if they were correct.

The wiring should be something like (N/O button: -/ +-)


     +-------/ +------------* Route A
Hot-|
     +-------/ +------------* Route B

Rtn-------------------------* Common

Note that only the 'Hot' connection, from one side of your AC power supply, runs through the push buttons. The 'Common' return (center wire of Bachmann green turnout wire) should connect directly to the other side of your AC power supply

Len

The 30-Series and 40-Series KD couplers are identical in design, except for the coupler boxes and coupler materials. The 30-series come with a small, roundish, coupler box and the coupler is made of plastic. The 40-series come with a rectangular coupler box, similar to the #5 box without the ears, and the couplers are made of metal.

Athearn Genesis locos have their own coupler boxes, so what comes with the coupler doesn't matter. So if you want metal couplers instead of plastic, use a #46 (metal long center shank) instead of the #36 (plastic long center shank). The #38 is a plastic medium center shank, which is the same as the #5 metal center shank coupler. Which is why there is no #48 coupler. Or you could use a #148 'whisker' coupler.

Len

Actually, except for putting some cork under them to get the height correct, there's nothing to adapt on the Atlas turnout. You may have to trim the loop and pin off the end of the connecting EZ-Track though.

Len

FYI for any who care, HO EZ-Track library update 4.60.008 adds the new 44592 EZ-Track fitter pieces to RR-Track. For those who have RR-Track with the EZ-Track library it can be downloaded at:

http://www.rrtrack.com/html/updates_ho.html

Len

Another very useful web page with a ton of info on making turnouts "DCC Friendly" if they're not already, and dealing with those oddball layout wiring issues:

http://www.wiringfordcc.com/wirefordcc_toc.htm

Len