Was looking on line at some 2-10-2s. Would like to know if the drive wheel power pick up has a better design then the spectrum 4-8-2 mountians. the mountians had little metal fingers that would touch the back of the drive wheels but they can easly be bent if the loco derailed. they have been a problem from day one on my montian.

I hope the 2-10-2 power pickup is similar to the 2-8-0

Trent

all depends on the LED. I think Bachmann already has a resistor on the board to brink 12V down to what the stock LED needs.
If it currently has a LED  you may just be able to swap in a diffrent LED.
If it has a light bulb then yes it will need a resistor. IIRC you will need a 560 ohm resistor for your led to be safe

Dont feel bad at least you have a start. you can always upgrade later. I would suggest NCE or MRC DCC if you want better control of sound/DCC  locos.  Regardless. The sound box car is an old but well used idea. I built a few as a kid and recall some company had a flat car with a load that had chuff sounds. I recall it had a metal tab on the axel and as the axel turned the chuff would sound evertime the tab made contact with a wiper mounted on the underframe. Primitive but it worked.  any ways if you need more help just let us know. I have made a few cars that have lights. the key is the car needs to have weight in it for good contact with the rails and the trucks need to be set up right so you dont short out.

A number 8 would be better but that number 6 should be ok for that loco at slower speeds?

Check the front pilot truck and see if it is interfearing with the frame. if not check that it is free to move side to side and up and down. if it has a tab that holds it to the loco it may be bent. if that all looks ok. check the rear of the loco/tender aera for interfearence.  if that looks ok start looking at the switch for issues. is it perfectly flat? it should be flat from each track that runs thru it. also check the point rails to see if its helping the wheels ride up and leave the rail. make sure the point rails are bent inwards so that the wheels cant ride up the rails. Do other locos have trouble with this switch?   

not that I have seen or heard of.

To be honest I do like puffing smoke from the MTH and BLI mfg. but only in small amounts and at slow speed so you can hear and see the chuff. great for photos or putting on a show, However the soot that it leaves behind is a PITA to clean off of the rails.

First I have to ask..why not put the sound unit in the tender?

Anyways its quite simple. you will need metal wheels for you car. take the wheels and install them so that the isolated side of the axels are on the same side of each truck. You will need to find axel power pick up tabs that are often found on steam engine tenders or passenger cars/cabooses with lights. drill holes near the trucks and run wires thru the car frame. solder the tabs to the wires. bolt the trucks with the power pickup tabs to your box car (each truck must have the isolated axels so that each truck picks up power from diffrent rails.)

connect the MRC wire to the power pick up wires

Simple!

Thanks John.

Glad you liked that Video. I will admit that train did stall on one of the grades down the line but managed to pull the whole 10 mile main line with only help in one spot.


Here is another vid with the same loco.  this time it has about 60+ cars putting on a show for open house night at the club
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA28-zblCm8
But I have to let you in on a little secret. It had a powered Box car in this vid. I took a Proto 2000 S1 chassi, removed the loco shell and placed a 40' box car shell (with added weight in the shell ) over it. That Loco was pulling 80 cars at the end of the night all by itself. Made the die hard diesel guys a little grumpy 

Steam still rules!!!!

Trent 

Hi Guys.

Doug was talking about my 2-8-4 Loco that has pulled 51 cars on the flat. ( 40'-50' freight cars with all metal IM wheels). up 1% grades its at about 40 cars at 1.5-1.75% about 34 cars)I added weight in every place I could find. Dome.boiler cab etc.. biggest issue I had was getting more weight forward of the driver centers. At one point the loco was doing a wheelie with all the extra cab weight I had added. It was still pulling but as soon as it started to slip it would pull the front 2 drivers off the rails. I have not weighed the loco but its heavy. I found the stock Bachmann DCC motor decoder is not up to the task of a train this heavy. It needed about 30% throttle just to get moving and then it just took off running. So I added an ESU micro motor decoder and now this loco will crawl with a 40 car train at speed step 1/128. I had a QSI decoder in it with this vid below but the BEMF was so bad that I put the ESU back in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqBgNLUQQBQ


I did try bullfrog snot before adding all the weight and It seamed to stress the stock motor to much with a heavy train. it would lunge ahead then slow etc... always had traction with BFS,just to much of it!

Regards
Trent

For cheep get an IHC hudson. can be had for under $99 if you shop around. biggest issue is they have the deep flanges.

For higher end Broadway Limited made alot of them and can be had for under $200

Great pictures and scenery work. It looks very real. Nice job!

I have a few bulbs that are simply glued into a hole in the building. I run the voltage around 8V and have not had issues melting the plastic. If you run a full 12 things may heat up.

one pic shows some exterior lights on buildings
and the other shows my plastic street lamps fully enclosed with bulbs.

no issues so far!

does the decoder have BEMF control?

if it does adjusting the BEMF settings can smooth out a jerky loco motor. 

Ditto on the razor blades to hold and set the spring in. I use the hobby knife with the #5 blade. Put the blad in the spring coal near one end of the spring. incert the far end of the spring in the nuckel and guide the razor and sping to the other pin to secure it.....have fun!!!!

with the loco on the main track

press loco, 0003, enter
press the Program button untill the display reads "prog main",press enter.
when the screen flashes "ADR" put in your new number (example 1255), enter.
skip thru the other default settings by pressing enter.
press loco,"1255", enter

you should have control of the loco.

dont forget....you can always add a "powered car" to help a single engine pull a normal string of cars over grades.

here is a vid of a 62 car train pulled by a steam engine and a powered car. maxed out I can pull about 70 cars with this combo or 110 cars with 2 powered cars! makes a great show also!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Lmackattack#p/a/u/2/IA28-zblCm8

Hello

Can you list the loco he has?

If he has a DCC loco and a layout with a DC throttle it may not work unless the engine has a "dual mode" decoder installed.