Trevor McAlister
Registered
I am having issues converting a large scale Bachmann 2-8-0 Consolidation to DCC.
This is the third Consolidation I have converted to DCC so wasn’t anticipating any issues, but as there isn’t a definitive guide I may have missed something.
So as usual I completely removed the original circuit board and connected in a Digitrax DG583S, and everything was fine until I was doing my final rolling road tests at full speed.
It was when I took the loco over speed setting 40 that after 5-15 seconds a brief short circuit event occurred. During my initial fault finding on the rolling road and then on the track the short circuit event occurred 10-15 times, which resulted in cooking my first DG583S.
Having dismantled the loco again, I have tried to replicate the issue using batteries so as to not risk damaging my second DG583S, which did show the same symptoms on first testing the decoder. But I was not able to replicate the issue using batteries, even at the full 16v.
After detaching the motor and gearbox from the chassis, and running it using the decoder I was able to replicate the issue, but with the reduced load it wasn’t causing the decoder to short out.
It seems that when running the motor above 50% speed after 5-15 seconds the motor suddenly cuts power, for less than 500ms, and then starts going again at the previous speed setting. You can see the motor twitch as a result of the torque as the motor reapplies the power.
There is no visible damage to the motor or the gearbox, and its perfectly happy to run on DC or batteries.
Having read other posts on this site, I’m starting to wonder if the circuit board (G814X-PCB04) that is attached to the motor needs to be bypassed or removed when converting to DCC.
Related article (https://www.gscalecentral.net/threads/bachmann-2-6-0-stopped-dead.151451/ ) it also has photo of the circuit board, although my one isn’t damaged.
I understand that this board is an RF choke, or reduces back EMF, but this is stretching my knowledge of electronics.
I know that on later Bachmann locos, I have got a 2-6-6-2, the plug & play dummy board for DC operations has smoothing capacitors on it. Is this the equivalent of what’s on the G814X-PCB04 which is directly attached to the motor?
If the circuit board does need to be bypassed or removed on this loco where it has caused an issue with the DCC decoder, is it best to remove the same circuit board on my previous two 2-8-0 Consolidation conversions, even though they didn’t have the same issue.
Many thanks
Trevor
This is the third Consolidation I have converted to DCC so wasn’t anticipating any issues, but as there isn’t a definitive guide I may have missed something.
So as usual I completely removed the original circuit board and connected in a Digitrax DG583S, and everything was fine until I was doing my final rolling road tests at full speed.
It was when I took the loco over speed setting 40 that after 5-15 seconds a brief short circuit event occurred. During my initial fault finding on the rolling road and then on the track the short circuit event occurred 10-15 times, which resulted in cooking my first DG583S.
Having dismantled the loco again, I have tried to replicate the issue using batteries so as to not risk damaging my second DG583S, which did show the same symptoms on first testing the decoder. But I was not able to replicate the issue using batteries, even at the full 16v.
After detaching the motor and gearbox from the chassis, and running it using the decoder I was able to replicate the issue, but with the reduced load it wasn’t causing the decoder to short out.
It seems that when running the motor above 50% speed after 5-15 seconds the motor suddenly cuts power, for less than 500ms, and then starts going again at the previous speed setting. You can see the motor twitch as a result of the torque as the motor reapplies the power.
There is no visible damage to the motor or the gearbox, and its perfectly happy to run on DC or batteries.
Having read other posts on this site, I’m starting to wonder if the circuit board (G814X-PCB04) that is attached to the motor needs to be bypassed or removed when converting to DCC.
Related article (https://www.gscalecentral.net/threads/bachmann-2-6-0-stopped-dead.151451/ ) it also has photo of the circuit board, although my one isn’t damaged.
I understand that this board is an RF choke, or reduces back EMF, but this is stretching my knowledge of electronics.
I know that on later Bachmann locos, I have got a 2-6-6-2, the plug & play dummy board for DC operations has smoothing capacitors on it. Is this the equivalent of what’s on the G814X-PCB04 which is directly attached to the motor?
If the circuit board does need to be bypassed or removed on this loco where it has caused an issue with the DCC decoder, is it best to remove the same circuit board on my previous two 2-8-0 Consolidation conversions, even though they didn’t have the same issue.
Many thanks
Trevor
