I have all the McKinley Explorer (new set) of passenger cars.  Each car has a light bar inside, and they receive power from track power in DCC mode, so the lights are always on if there is track power available.

Question to the group:

If I install mobile decoders in each car and only connect the red/black to track power and the blue & white for lighting to the light bar, can I combine all 4 of the cars with the 2 engines into a consist and turn the lights on & off on all 4 of the cars and the 2 engines all at once with the engine light function key?

Quote from: ebtnut on August 08, 2012, 12:43:06 PM
May I suggest that someone is confusing radius and diameter?  Issues with 24" RADIUS curves and smaller will definitily cause issues with big engines and those with 4-wheel pilot trucks.

Doesn't Bachmann only recommend needing a 22" radius track for their largest steam engine, the Big Boy Steam Engine (2-8-8-4)?

Quote from: Yardmaster on August 08, 2012, 07:59:30 AM
On the Bachmann online forum the best track is EZ Track!

I'll drink to that ! 

I contacted Bachmann this morning and they want the uniit back.  Looks like a few weeks of down time.

Bad news today!

Day before yesterday I ran the chassis and it responded fine.  Last night I got the cable car all reassembled and went to test it.  Could not get it to move.  Turns out I can not get any power on any of the tracks at all.  My brand new (6 weeks old) Dynamis LED's just continuously blink at me, and the manual says the remote is not communicating with the Command Unit.  Tried everything including a master reset with out any luck.  This morning I took everything over to H & R Trains (Bachmann dealer located right down the road from my house!) and we substituted each piece of my system out for one of theirs one at a time and we determined I have a defective Command module.  Receiver, throttle and power supply are all working fine on their Command module but neither my equipment or theirs will get my Command module to respond to either of our throttles.  Guess I need to contact Bachmann Monday morning and see what I need to do to get a warranty repair or changeout.

At any rate, looks like video will need to wait until that happens.

Hope this is just an isolated case.  6 weeks doesn't seem like a very long half life for a Command module!

Quote from: Ken G Price on August 03, 2012, 07:03:27 PM
Photos? Video?

I can do that! ... I don't even need a reason!   

Doneldon,

Acknowledge that, but I would more than likely prefer to add a stationary decoder to the existing installed turnouts.  How can I determine if the turnouts I have are solenoid, slow motion motors or something else?  The decoder part seems easy, power the decoder from track power and power the switch motor from the decoder, but you need to get the proper decoder for the installed switch motor.  The type of switch machine motor being used in the turnout is what I don't know.

Any help?

Well, it turned without burning!

Successfully soldered the red and black track power wires to the underside of the motor support spring clips last night and was able to reassemble the entire motor truck with all the wires in place and no interference problems.

I removed the motor from the truck and placed the truck on the track and powered the rails with DCC, and the motor performed great with really nice speed control in both directions.

Only one more thing I need to do is put the shrink tubing on the motor support clips to electrically isolate the motor from the clips, reinstall the motor and it's finished.

Quote from: JRG1951 on July 31, 2012, 02:09:31 PM
Could be!
You would want to use it with a dummy A unit or or a DCC powered A unit without sound!
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The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.  >>  Edward R. Murrow

Ya got me there!  There I go thinking about the real trains and not the model trains.  Keep forgetting the model doesn't have an actual engineer in the cab!

I can now see why you would really want that type of setup, and hope programming the CV's does the trick for you!

Sort of an update, as I am not finished yet.  I disassembled the cable car with no difficulty, in fact after removing the powered truck from the cable car and removing the 4 screws which hold the top cap in place, the entire truck fell apart in my hand!

It was easy enough to see how it reassembled though.

The wheels are metal with a plastic gear in the center of the axle, which isolates the left and right wheels from each other.

A spring clip contacts the inner side of the wheel to pick up power.  Each side of the truck is metal and isolated from each other, and the spring clips in contact with the wheels fasten to the metal truck.

Another pair of metal spring clips fasten to the metal trucks, and the motor actually rests on these spring clips, and contact the electrical terminals on the motor.

To isolate and wire the motor, I had to solder the grey and orange wires from the decoder to the two metal pickups on the motor.  Sounds easy, but these tabs only about 1/8" to 3/16" in size and are also the motor brush holders as well.  They are also in direct contact with the plastic motor frame.  If you apply too much heat, the plastic frame melts.  If you apply too much solder, the solder will wick down into the brush mechanisms and solder them in place, not allowing them to be spring fed against the rotors.  Need to bee real careful.  I didn't feel I had the experience to do this part, so I took it over to H & R Trains in St. Petersburg, which is conveniently only a matter of blocks from my house.  Dave, the repair tech soldered the wires to the motor like he had done it every day (and he probably has!).

Next comes connecting the red and black wires to either the metal truck halves or soldering them to the spring clip between the motor and the truck.  Don't know yet which way will be best, but will look at that this evening.

Last, the motor still needs to rest on the spring clips for positioning and alignment and also needs to be isolated from the two spring clips to prevent track power from directly contacting the motor.  I intend to do this with shrink tubing over the metal clip, so the motor will actually ride on the shrink tubing, not the metal clip.

Put it back together, paint the exposed wires black to match the interior and tape the decoder to the floor, put it on the track and fire it up.  If it goes as planned, it will then be a DCC San Fransisco Cable Car with practically no exposed components.  Hopefully it will go as planned, but we shall see.

More after it either turns or burns! 

Quote from: rogertra on July 30, 2012, 11:21:03 PM

Quote from: rbryce1 on July 30, 2012, 11:02:25 PM
I have the same engine, only in Erie Lackawanna, and I just tried it on the track by itself.  No bells or horns either.  A "B" unit must be used with an "A" unit, (as the "B" unit has no cab for an engineer to control the train).  That being the case, and I may be wrong, but it seems logical that there would be no facilities for a bell or horn on the "B" unit.

Isn't that what I wrote? 

Yes it is!  You posted it while I was writing mine!

I have the same engine, only in Erie Lackawanna, and I just tried it on the track by itself.  No bells or horns either.  A "B" unit must be used with an "A" unit, (as the "B" unit has no cab for an engineer to control the train).  That being the case, and I may be wrong, but it seems logical that there would be no facilities for a bell or horn on the "B" unit.

Is there a way to add a decoder to an existing remote controlled turnout?

The Bachmann turntable is listed as DCC ready and comes with an 8 pin dummy chip.  What decoder is necessary to make this DCC Equipped?

That's interesting!  I bought a Rivarossi 4-6-4 engine in great shape which I converted o DCC, but the wheels keep falling out of the trucks on the tender when you pick it up.  They always stay in place once it is on the track.  I was thinking the trucks had been separated, but now I wonder if someone replaced them and used the wrong length wheel.

Taking it out and measuring it will tell me what is there now, but does anyone know what size wheel SHOULD be there (33" or 36").  If someone changed all the wheels with the wrong length, they may have installed the wrong diameter as well.  Engine and tender are giving me no problems now except for the tender wheels falling out when you pick it up, and it doesn't do it all the time, about 40-50% of the time.