This loco is relatively straightforward as there is plenty of space within its body shell. The motor brushes are insulated from track power via the plastic bogie, power pickup is solely from the unpowered bogie. However the tungsten lamp based lighting with directional control via diodes needs to be removed as this arrangement will not work on a DCC powered track, all lamps will stay on due to the AC nature of the track power. I have also found that the current rating for a decoder driving a tungsten lamp is much lower than what they can drive into an LED, so replacing with LEDs is the best option. For this loco I have simply connected the LEDs for being enabled by the standard function F0, and illuminated relative to the locos direction of travel. I also show the wiring diagram for the lights which is a common confguration for many simply lit vintage locos, not just this one. Motor Wiring As is the case with most of the vintage locos I have converted the standard of soldering is from bad to appalling, this one is no exception. Bulb holders and lamps are also corroded together after years of poor storage so all is removed to start with a clean slate. Leaving original wiring in a vintage loco is asking for intermittant faults to interfere with running at the most annoying times. Large blobby lumps of solder are visible on the motor terminals as well as loose wire strands on the pickup wires attached to the contact strips, circled in the images below. The contact strips are easily released from the chassis by pressing down where arrowed and sliding the strips towards the centre of the loco chassis. While these are out cleaning the bogie ends of these strips and the pins that protrude up from the floor with a switch contact cleaner like Servisol is essential as poor electrical contact here will play havoc when running with a decoder. At one point I almost decided to remove these and wire direct to the bogie, as every non-soldered joint is a potential failure point. After removal of the original wiring and cleaning up the tags and contact strips time for a decoder. My two previous Jouef Class 40 conversions used Lenz decoders but for this one I first tried the Hattons Mini-Harness but power pickup is not good enough, so a RoS-218 was then fitted. The Rails Connect series of decoders are very tolerant of less than perfect pickups but they cannot work miracles, in this case success. Tested on programming track, all okay so move on. The loco was then layout track tested to ensure the decoder and loco are happy together, how it runs on your layout is what ulitmately matters, regardless of how well it works on a rolling road or test track, got that tee-shirt! LED Wiring This is straightforward and most decoders support simple lighting, I include the wiring diagram next which includes component values and source of supply. Noting which LED leads are which is essential, they were cut down to a usable length, in this case keeping the relative lead lengths the same to aid wiring. An elastic sleeve around the LED makes it a snug fit in the original lamp holder clip. Then the leads attached, noting the colours, blue and yellow for the rear as per the diagram to ensure that the correct ones will light for the direction of travel. Blue and white for the front lights. Before soldering all the joints a final check on the rolling road using clip on test leads to ensure that all is correct. All good, so the joints were then soldered, followed by a programmimg road check, and with the sleeves taped in position a track test, all being well the heat shrink sleeves were shrunk into position. Final test then ready for use. Summary A straightforward conversion, it runs well despite the few active wheels on the bogies, 4 for power pickup and 4 for traction, with tyres. Discussion always Jim Return to Index