A few weeks back on GSM I mentioned that I'd acquired an as-new No.13 Fiery Elias tram loco via German Ebay; it's a 1991 built version, black bodyshell with green panelling and silver roof, and a 3-pin sandwich motor block.
The plan was to give it MTS and sound using one of the Massoth LS decoders I bought from Jeremy (Dragon G Scale) recently. Well, yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to get on with it! Basically I followed Mike's excellent article, here (while GSM is still active):
http://www.gscalemad.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1909
The main differences were that I was using the smaller LS chip rather than Mike's XLS, and that my Elias is an earlier model than his - Mike's had the 4-pin D gearbox. So, the first job (after taking it all apart following the guide in the article) was to add the fourth (yellow) wire to the gearbox in the time-honoured manner - this went pretty well, the only thing I'd add to previous instructions is to make sure that you trim away as much plastic as possible in the mounting area beside the motor terminal that you are soldering the yellow wire to - I didn't pare out quite enough the first time, resulting in the motor not QUITE seating back snugly enough, so when I test-ran it it vibrated and growled alarmingly! Dismantling it again and cutting away a little more plastic (easy enough with a sharp scalpel blade) allowed the motor to seat down better and the gears to mesh fully, and it now runs fine.
The rest of the installation pretty much followed Mike's notes and piccies - like him, I put the speaker (a Massoth 40mm with square mounting) in the coal bunker at the back of the body, and slipped the decoder into the boiler - this is where I actually had an easier job than Mike did, as the smaller size of the LS decoder actually allows it to slide in on top of the lead weight WITHOUT having to cut part of the weight away as is necessary with the much larger XLS! All I had to do was trim off a conical lug of lead on top of the weight, then the LS fits perfectly into the available gap above the (well-wrapped with insulating tape) weight. The resulting installation is neat and tidy, and virtually invisible at normal viewing distances.
As my Elias has the old screw-in bulbs which are (I think?) rated at 18volts, I set the lighting value CV down to 18 (which actually delivers about half full track voltage, so around 12v) so that I get a nice warm yellow glow from them - it looks just right for that old-time feel.
With the coal bunker acting as a sounding box for the speaker, and the two holes of the (now disconnected) old-style lighting socket proving a couple of ready-made sound holes, it really does sound nice - I just need to tweak the programming a little via my SPROG to move some of the sound commands around for ease of operation, and the job will be done!
Thanks again to Mike for the original article, it saved me a lot of time trying to figure out the best way of doing things. If anyone else is planning a similar job and would like to compare notes, feel free to ask.
Jon.
The plan was to give it MTS and sound using one of the Massoth LS decoders I bought from Jeremy (Dragon G Scale) recently. Well, yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to get on with it! Basically I followed Mike's excellent article, here (while GSM is still active):
http://www.gscalemad.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1909
The main differences were that I was using the smaller LS chip rather than Mike's XLS, and that my Elias is an earlier model than his - Mike's had the 4-pin D gearbox. So, the first job (after taking it all apart following the guide in the article) was to add the fourth (yellow) wire to the gearbox in the time-honoured manner - this went pretty well, the only thing I'd add to previous instructions is to make sure that you trim away as much plastic as possible in the mounting area beside the motor terminal that you are soldering the yellow wire to - I didn't pare out quite enough the first time, resulting in the motor not QUITE seating back snugly enough, so when I test-ran it it vibrated and growled alarmingly! Dismantling it again and cutting away a little more plastic (easy enough with a sharp scalpel blade) allowed the motor to seat down better and the gears to mesh fully, and it now runs fine.
The rest of the installation pretty much followed Mike's notes and piccies - like him, I put the speaker (a Massoth 40mm with square mounting) in the coal bunker at the back of the body, and slipped the decoder into the boiler - this is where I actually had an easier job than Mike did, as the smaller size of the LS decoder actually allows it to slide in on top of the lead weight WITHOUT having to cut part of the weight away as is necessary with the much larger XLS! All I had to do was trim off a conical lug of lead on top of the weight, then the LS fits perfectly into the available gap above the (well-wrapped with insulating tape) weight. The resulting installation is neat and tidy, and virtually invisible at normal viewing distances.
As my Elias has the old screw-in bulbs which are (I think?) rated at 18volts, I set the lighting value CV down to 18 (which actually delivers about half full track voltage, so around 12v) so that I get a nice warm yellow glow from them - it looks just right for that old-time feel.
With the coal bunker acting as a sounding box for the speaker, and the two holes of the (now disconnected) old-style lighting socket proving a couple of ready-made sound holes, it really does sound nice - I just need to tweak the programming a little via my SPROG to move some of the sound commands around for ease of operation, and the job will be done!
Thanks again to Mike for the original article, it saved me a lot of time trying to figure out the best way of doing things. If anyone else is planning a similar job and would like to compare notes, feel free to ask.
Jon.
