2015/11/28

2015_11_28 B Class continues and a tidy up turns into bigger mess!

2015_11_28 So how does one keep a clean work area?

Or even how do some of you ever work on a small desk. Oh I did that once too. I built almost a hundred pink epoxy kits and painted them in an ensuit fitted out with a desk over the toilet, which never ceased to upset my poor dear wife :(

But I spent a few days trying to find some parts that I knew exactly where they were ... that is till I decided to have a clean up a month or so back.

So I searched everywhere and even cleaned up a little more. Taking individual bits and putting them with other similar bits. Going through Athearn box lids filled with tiny parts, screws, detail items, broken off bits, and putting them in one place where they could be found, particularly if I found out where they fell off.  So I started clearing off my work bench (almost finished that too) so I have somewhere to work without cluttering up the railroad.

Go back in my blog to when I cleaned up to lay back sheets?    Now look at todays work area. Yes I know finish one job, before starting another... then the B Class needs finishing and... and.....


The clean up continues and most of this stuff is needing a new home, as I work at the other end adjacent the TV putting the B Class' back together  and  testing them all out.

Talking about the B Class.
As Eugene suggested their are wiring faults with this engine, but they are peculiar faults, unlike the ones Austrains presented us with at the start of the Chinese era.






At each end of the new lighting board note that a red and a black wire extend up from the bogies?
We do not connect red wires to the decoder red wire or black wires to the decoder black wire. we in fact select the wires from the same side of the loco. Actually obvious, otherwise you would connect poitive pickup to negative pickup and create a direct short through the decoder.

I think their are two different batches, because the first B I worked on, did not have this fault. Red wires were both on top, and black wires both on bottom.  So be warned. Ignore colour of wires just make sure you join the same sides to the decoder red and black wires. Thanks again Eugene :)





The next trick is to do with the headlight wires and the marker light wires. Probably due to the original board wiring, however it slowed me down for a time.
In this picture you will note that a pair of wires are shorter and another longer?
The short wires go to the headlight, long wires to marker lights.
the headlight black wire and marker light red wire are positive and join the decoder blue wire. So then the long black wire is green or purple wire and the short red wire is headlight white or yellow.

Here I swap over the wires to correct the short that shut down this decoder.

By getting rid of the Auscision lighting board I had to add 1k resistors to the purple, green, white and yellow decoder wires to protect the LED's. You can see one shrink protected here. hmm the shrink tubing shrunk too much I see in this picture exposing the wire at one end :(
The new board lowers the decoder and prevents it contacting the roof, and overheating the plastic.

Three done and one to go.
Now I need to remember how to connect F4 and F5 so I can turn on my marker lights. Loksound keep talking about  Function 1 and Function 2 which is typical German confusion, if you use other companies decoders as well. F0 headlight, F1Engine start up or shut down, F2 Whistle, F3 coupling and air noise, F4 dynamic brake, F5 notch up, F6 notch down, F7 shunt mode or air release, F8 mute/ handbrake on and off  F9 short horn F10 air compressor, F11 front Marker Lights, F12 Rear marker lights and reed switches both ends turns on red tail light fire mans side only when required Ha Ha  That works for me!
EDIT +3 hours and the lighting is not working on any of the projects. I have identified Anode and Cathode connections and tested them, but for some reason each Loco has the same lighting fault. It can only be reversed wires. How could I do that? Need to recheck the polarities :(
Note to self. Maybe if I cannot solder nicely, I should at least photo shop it to look good?

Cheers
Rod