LED lighting and other tweaks for the Chinese bogie coach.

Neil Robinson

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Check the tightness of all the bogie screws (ringed in red). The bogie should be free to rock a little from side to side and, as the bogie has compensation, one side frame should be free to rock back and forth. I found the odd screw too tight, and in one case loosening it alone wasn’t enough, I had to do a little judicious plastic filing to get it to function to my satisfaction.
I’m not keen on the white plastic coupling spring, this has been replaced by an LGB spare, the second bogie also has one fitted with an additional LGB hook. The wheels have been replaced by Bachmann metal wheels, not too expensive and nice and heavy to give additional weight low down, just where it’s most needed.
The blank area of the floor with the maker’s mark is the site for the battery box. I chose to use a switched PP3 type battery box from Maplins, (code L90AN) and Mr Dremel has already removed a piece of brake rodding moulding in readiness.

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Next remove the roof by pulling it upwards from the body. It’s quite a tight fit and will need a little (but not too much) force. Lift out the pair of sliding doors, these have holes for a handle, but no handle. I made handles from short lengths of copper conductor from a piece of 2.5mm squared mains cable as shown.

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Now remove the screws (eight in total) highlighted in yellow in the first picture and separate the body from the frame. This is designed to be assembled one way round only. Take a look at the asymmetry of the screws (highlighted in yellow) that secure the seats to the body and note the recesses in the frame (highlighted in red) for these screw heads.

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Observe the lack of a set of double seats. I suspect the LGB version has a toilet compartment fitted in this gap.

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As the window here, in common with all the others, is clear I decided to make up additional seating from 2mm high impact polystyrene sheet. Unscrew and remove all the seats, the double ones to make the additional ones and the single ones to place the copper strip underneath them.

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The wiring is done on the single seat side to prevent any possible interference with the operation of the sliding doors.
 

Neil Robinson

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Right now prepare the lighting. I cut a strip of stripboard three full tracks wide slightly longer than the length of the coach body. On the prototype this sagged rather too much for my liking so I cut another strip of stripboard two strips wide and soldered it to the first as shown making a tee section beam. The middle copper track was cut in line with the centre of each window and the leds soldered across these gaps as shown in the diagram. The middle track was also cut between the fourth and fifth leds and the two parallel circuits made with the resistors.
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The adhesive backed copper tape was fixed to the floor and ends, the seats were screwed back in place, the battery box fixed to the underside and its wires soldered to the copper strips.

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The slots at the top ends of the body enlarged with a Dremell to suit the strip board tee beam, and the figures glued in place.

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The doors were also replaced before soldering the connections to the strip board. The connection opposite end to the photo uses a piece of bare wire similar to that from which the door handles are made as it doesn’t need to be insulated as it doesn’t cross the other tracks and it stops the lighting unit moving lengthways.
Finally a little plastic was removed the parts of the roof that are adjacent to the connections and lighting unit to give adequate clearance, the roof replaced and testing commenced.

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Doug

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24 Oct 2009
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Thanks Neil, lots of good ideas there for any coach.
 

corgi

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Very clever. 10 out of 10.
 

dunnyrail

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Great post and very useful to hve the Values for the resistors. This is something that I always find a problem.Many thanks.
JonD
 

Bram

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24 Oct 2009
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Nice one Neil, I like the idea, one for the future.

Very illuminating,:rofl: thanks
 

Doug

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Neil - did you use one long strip of veroboard, or did you have to join two bits together to get the length?
 

Neil Robinson

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Doug said:
Neil - did you use one long strip of veroboard, or did you have to join two bits together to get the length?

When I built the prototype the offcuts of veroboard I had in stock meant that I had to make the strip from two pieces joined together and I cut enough for the other two coaches at the same time. By the time I got round to making the second and third units I had some long enough, so the vertical strengthening pieces are one piece per coach.