DC Kits 4CEP EMU kit.

You'll notice that the trailing Motor/Brake floor is a bit different to the lead cars floor. This is because if you fit a second motor bogie as I'm doing, you have to cut out a hole in the floor to accommodate the bogie on the trailing car. I've modified it somewhat, but still need to drill a central hole to allow the bogie to pivot. More as it happens.

 

The product of an afternoons work! Scratch building the corridor and partitions, supergluing in place, assembling the last of the seating (thank goodness!) and fixing in place, so that's all four of the interiors completed and ready for seating to be painted and passengers to fit. In between times, there'll be the carriage sides to spray and when that's done, all the windows to glue in.......almost seems an endless supply of small parts!
(....and no, I'm not gonna model the toilet compartment interior!)

Keith.

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Whilst I'm waiting for more paint, I'm just scratching around with odd jobs rather than starting another project, so I've pushed on with the two motor car cab fronts. After gluing on the corridor connectors, I added the brass 'door' frets to the inside of the connectors, drilled and filed out the openings to which the destination codes will be fixed. My intention is to illuminate these panels from behind (as with my Bachmann 4CEP) using red/white dual LED's. I chose the 'Lighthouse' type as they're flat, so would fit in better and not intrude too much into the cab interiors, but not wanting any light 'bleed' from these LED's into the cab, I made a small box for the LED to sit in, using thin strips of Plasticard like this.

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With the box fixed, I glued the LED in position as I don't want it rattling around. Having made a back for the box, again from black Plasticard, I drilled it for the 3 LED leads, and glued it into position leaving the leads ready to solder on wires from the decoder at cab floor level. I'll likely paint these black on completion so they won't be seen from outside.

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Here you can see the idea at work, just a quick 'lash-up' with a battery to show what I mean. With a route indicator over the opening, it should show up quite well.

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Keeping it nice and thin means that the box itself doesn't protrude into the cab by more than a couple of mm, and this pic shows what I mean. Before fitting the LED's, I filed down the 'tower' part of each one to around 1mm as I want the light out of the side, rather than up the 'lighthouse tower'.

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I've now managed to get a bit further on with the building of this unit, having completed the spraying, decals and finally satin varnish to protect the decals. All the brass fret bits are now also attached, door hinges, handles etc done, so I then glued the ends onto each coach, then the sides after fitting windows and curtains in the same manner as the Bachmann units. I had previously painted all the seats with the sides off as it left clear access for the paintbrush. I attached the six unpowered bogies with the plastic pins supplied, then once I had the decoders, soldered the motor and pickup connections to the Tenshodo bogies. As the setup means that when the front bogie drives forwards, it means that to work in the same direction, the rear bogie has to be in reverse (as it's facing the opposite way), I programmed both bogies on the rolling road at the same time, just ensuring that (A) both sets of pickups were on the same side, red to red, black to black, and just reversed the motor connections to the rear bogie so that while the front pulled, the rear pushed, and vice-versa in reverse. With the motor bogie fixed in position, I glued the pivot screw so it can't come loose, and having slid the decoder through a slot just to the rear of the bogie, I 'blu-tacked' it to the rear guards partition and soldered up the connections for the indicator board LEDs (red/white) and to the coach roof lighting. A quick test on the rolling road showed all well, so I then did the same operations to the rear motor coach. Front motor coach driver and passengers have been added, and all that now remains is to lightly glue on the roof, however, as I've run out of 'seated passengers', I'm unable to go any further until supplies arrive from China. This is the leading motor coach, ready for roof fitting.

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Looking at the rear end of the front motor coach, you'll see that I've used one of the quite small 2 pin sockets suggested not long back by Rob Pulham. This is glued to the rear end, second coach having a short 'flying lead' with matching plug which when connected will carry the coach lighting supply to the second coach. When all is complete and operation checked, lead and plug/socket will be suitably black painted, and with corridor connections fitted, will blend in almost un-noticed. The third coach lighting will be supplied from the decoder in the rear motor coach, as will the indicator board lighting, this also being 'reverse connected' to the rear decoder, since when the front coach decoder powers the white light, the rear coach decoder will power the rear red light and vice-versa. Thus the whole unit will be dual motor bogie powered using one decoder address for the two decoders, front/rear indicator lights changing over directionally, and all four coaches interior lighting controlled from F1.
To be continued.
Keith.

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