DCC in B'mann loco's

[Dave R.]

Friends, I'm putting a DCC sound unit in a B'mann
On30 4-4-0 inside frame loco but I'm puzzled by the
separate PC board that the original B'mann DCC unit is
plugged into.
What is the purpose of this PCB unit and can it be removed
for the sake of space?
Thanks,
Dave R.

 

[Bill Nelson]

mindless speculation

I'm not familiar with this locomotive, and have minimal DCC experience. Be warned this is pure speculation. Often times the PC board carries a plug to plug in a factory decoder , or a bypass plug, that runs the motor directly for DC operation. That way the manufacturer starts with a single product, that can then be prepared as a DCC or a pure DC product.


On the Bachman shay that we converted to DCC for use at the club, we were able to plug a decoder into the Pc board in the tender. we had to use a n scale decoder and it was a tight fit.


I have Bachman Thomas I converted to DCC for use at the club (the decoder rides in Annie). it had a PC board that was not DCC related. I left it in place, and it fried the first decoder, so I decided to remove it.

As a practical mater, if you don't have a good wiring diagram for the board, it might be safest to remove it, and run your own wiring for the DCC, and at least that way you would know for sure where each wire goes, and would gain the space, which can be critical when messing with too many wires.


Bill Nelson

 

[Dave R.]

speaker?

Fried a decoder? Ouch!
I suppose, since a Tsunami gives both DC and DCC operation,
there's no need in keeping the space crowding B'mann mother-board.
The On30 tender isn't much, if at all, bigger than an HO. I hope to
fit a "bass speaker" in that confined space... is the 1"X1/2" bass
speaker performance worth the trouble, rather than a 1" pancake
type?
Dave
Sanford, Fl

 

[Bill Nelson]

fried decoder

The fried decoder was a minimal digitrax unit and one of the guys at the club was able to supply me with both for less than $20 each , so I got off with a cheap easy lesson being, If I don't thoroughly understand the locomotive wiring, remove stuff until I do before installing a decoder. Mind you I do not understand the decoder, but it comes with a wiring diagram that shows how it hooks up to everything else.

Thomas has bad electrical pick up, so I put electrical pick up on Annie too, since they are hard wired together. Thomas isn't stout enough to pull Clarabelle too, as the extra pick up addds some drag.


I'd love to put a programmable sound decoder in Annie, and have a honking big radio cab with 16 function buttons. I'd program in the Peep peep, the theme song, and copy some short phrases into the decoder. The little kids at open houses go ape **** over Thomas as it is, If I could get him to talk to them it would be so much better. I spend a lot of time at open houses teaching kids how to drive Thomas. it is fun.

I'd be horrified if I fried a Tsunami

Bill Nelson