LGB Mallet 23851 Massoth decoder fitting

[Alpineandy]

Has any body fitted a massoth xl decoder to the above loco, if so have you any tips, guides.............8|
thanks in anticipation.................

 

[whatlep]

Has any body fitted a massoth xl decoder to the above loco, if so have you any tips, guides.............8|
thanks in anticipation.................

Yes - I have two of them, both XL fitted. It's very easy to do wth an XL AND the LGB 55026 connector (or Massoth equivalent). The XL comes with all the leads required for motor connections and there is loads of room to get it positioned next to the loco's main board. The motor leads (8 of them) simply plug onto the pins marked for them on the main board: br (braun/brown); ws (weiss/white); ge (gelb/yellow); gr (grun/green). With the 55026, the large plug fits into the obvious socket on the loco main board, but each of the six wires has to have its metal plug cut off and the bared wire inserted in the correct terminal on the XL. The XL's documentation has a wiring diagram showing where everything goes. Don;t forget that the six dip switches in a block on the loco's main board have to be changed. As ever, check and check again against the wiring diagram before applying power to the loco.

In terms of dismantling the loco, seven screws have to be unscrewed, three on each side of the red base plate and one which is under the front centre of the smokebox. The latter is a bit tricky to get at, but it can be done with care. When reassembling the body, it makes life easier to (very gently) remove one of the air tanks to the side of the front power bogie underneath the base plate. The front bogie is then free to pivot through 90 degrees and the pesky smokebox screw can be refitted with ease. The air tank just pushes back into place afterwards.

Hope this helps.

 

[Alpineandy]

Thanks for that...........I suspected I would need the extra cable, I'll get one on order

 

[Zerogee]

I've actually just done one of these in the last couple of weeks, with a lot of help and advice from Peter (Whatlep). Mine was actually a 22852 with factory sound, which had been MTS-fitted at the factory with a pretty awful lash-up of a 55020 and a 55030 booster. After finding that the 55030 was almost certainly faulty (not unusual, it seems), I ripped it all out (just the decoders, not the sound board!!) and put in an XL, which works beautifully. Peter has described it very well, though in my case the decoder went into the smokebox as the big sound board takes up most of the main body space. I hope that the attached pic might be of some use to you.
Just to reiterate Peter's warning: MAKE SURE YOU MOVE ALL THE DIP SWITCHES TO "OFF"! In my case, this was the white block of six red switches immediately forward of the eight connector pins for the motor and power leads; the layout of your non-sound main board may differ.

Best of luck!
Jon.

 

[whatlep]

Thanks for posting that picture Jon. Shows all the 55026 colours going into the XL beautifully. Note also the positioning of the power wires to the main board at bottom left.

 

[Zerogee]

Note also that the power and motor leads (the brown/white/yellow/green sets) are all doubled up to feed the two power bogies, so you're putting two wires into each of those little terminal connectors on the XL. You get the two sets of cables with the XL, but it can be just a little fiddly to get the two bared wire ends firmly into the one terminal hole - give them a gentle tug to make sure that they have both been firmly caught by the terminal screw, you don't want one coming loose.

Jon.

 

[Zerogee]

Thanks for that...........I suspected I would need the extra cable, I'll get one on order

Mark's (Muns) new online store has the Massoth equivalent cable here, for £5.00:
http://www.gardenrailoutlet.co.uk/p/118/massoth-emotion-lgb-interface-cable-6-pole < Link To http://www.gardenrailoutl...interface-cable-6-pole

Jon.

 

[whatlep]

Note also that the power and motor leads (the brown/white/yellow/green sets) are all doubled up to feed the two power bogies, so you're putting two wires into each of those little terminal connectors on the XL. You get the two sets of cables with the XL, but it can be just a little fiddly to get the two bared wire ends firmly into the one terminal hole - give them a gentle tug to make sure that they have both been firmly caught by the terminal screw, you don't want one coming loose.

Jon.

Absolutely right Jon. Good reminder.

 

[Alpineandy]

Just as a follow up to fitting the decoder when I checked the voltage on the 5v smoke generator output on the LGB board it was reading over 10 volts ? so I connected directly to the XL and altered cv to give 5.5 volts

 

[Zerogee]

Where inside the loco have you put your XL, Andy? Mine had to go in the smokebox because of the sound board taking up the rest of the space, but that is OK for me because I don't plan on using the smoke - as you are, then I'd make sure the decoder is well away from it to prevent things getting too hot!

Jon.

 

[Neil Robinson]

Just as a follow up to fitting the decoder when I checked the voltage on the 5v smoke generator output on the LGB board it was reading over 10 volts ? so I connected directly to the XL and altered cv to give 5.5 volts

In my experience the LGB board voltage can often be way out. The 5V units by both Seuthe and Graupner (probably the same with different labels) are rated at 4.5V to 6V. I often use a 6V regulator chip, L7806CV, for analogue use.
I'm confident you could safely set the chip output to 6V with good effect.

 

[Alpineandy]

Where inside the loco have you put your XL, Andy? Mine had to go in the smokebox because of the sound board taking up the rest of the space, but that is OK for me because I don't plan on using the smoke - as you are, then I'd make sure the decoder is well away from it to prevent things getting too hot!

Jon.

Jon
I used mounting tape supplied and put it on the rear weight (well insulated of course)
mine doesn't have a sound board though.
for info PS Hobbies recommended ditching the LGB board entirely and just wiring to the chip but that involves much cutting and soldering

 

[whatlep]

Where inside the loco have you put your XL, Andy? Mine had to go in the smokebox because of the sound board taking up the rest of the space, but that is OK for me because I don't plan on using the smoke - as you are, then I'd make sure the decoder is well away from it to prevent things getting too hot!

Jon.

Jon
I used mounting tape supplied and put it on the rear weight (well insulated of course)
mine doesn't have a sound board though.
for info PS Hobbies recommended ditching the LGB board entirely and just wiring to the chip but that involves much cutting and soldering

To be fair to PS Hobbies, their advice is sound. It's exactly the approach I've followed on early LGB motherboards without any kind of interface. No soldering is required, though you may need some connector blocks ("chocolate blocks" for those of us of a certain age). Typical simple LGB motherboards have little on them other than a 5 volt regulation circuit and a bunch of connectors. A typical Massoth DCC chip does the same thing and gives you a more stable output voltage to the various circuits such as motors, lights and ancilliaries (sp?) such as smoke units even on DC. It's a win-win alteration.

 

[mibema]

Thank you for that helpfull post!

I was looking for an idea how to fit a Massoth XL into my Sound Mallets (the blue 70685 and the brown 70700).
Fitting into the smokebox is excellent, also how to remove the 7th screw...
I made a small improvement, I've sealed the decoder into heat shrink tube, to seal it against damage caused by the fluid from the steam generator,
There is allways a small leakage because you can pull it for replacement.

Thank's again

Michael
P.S: the reason why I did not replace all that stuff with a XLS Sound decoder is, the existing mainboard contains:
- Goldcap Buffer (costs about 60 EUR separately)
- fire-box lightening, costs about 20 EUR separately.
also the fire-box LED are synchronized with the sound of the fire-box (open / close the door)

 

[jose07]

Hello,
I am following your post to also chip an XL on my Golden Arrow (brown) and Orient Express (blue) locos. Chipping the first has been easy, however I thought that by entering CV49=11, I could trigger the sounds from my Navigator F keys directly. Apparently the loco behaves on its own with respect to sound, it does not respond to any serial sequence of F1, nor it reacts to other F1 to F8 key orders. Have you tried this ?, am I wrong ?. Appreciate your feedback.
Next to chip will be the Orient express mallet, however when reviewing its characteristics it seems it does not have a decoder interface . . . . , that makes things more tricky, have your already tried to chip it with an XL ??.
Best regards
Jose

 

[Zerogee]

Hello Jose,

I think you will still have to operate the sound on your Mallets with serial rather than parallel commands - when you run that loco (or program its details into your Navigator and save them) you will have to set the Navi commands to 14 speeds steps and SERIAL control. If it's like mine, all the function buttons should then work as they should with a single push - though there will be a couple of seconds delay while the Navi sends the multiple serial pulses to the loco.

Best,
Jon.

 

[mibema]

well, my blue one (70685) allredy had the same 6pole interface like the brown (70700) loco.
but both seem to have serial old interfacing.
Massoth is stopping the support of parellel update until end of 2013.

regards

Michael

 

[whatlep]

Next to chip will be the Orient express mallet, however when reviewing its characteristics it seems it does not have a decoder interface . . . . , that makes things more tricky, have your already tried to chip it with an XL ??.
Best regards
Jose

Yes - it's a straightforward process. Exactly the same as that shown in the first few posts in this thread. Massoth XL, plus an LGB 55026 cable or Massoth equivalent. As Jon noted earlier, the 70685 loco's main board is serial only, so it needs to be configured that way to operate sounds in DCC mode.

 

[jose07]

Hi all,
I managed to fit both Mallets (Golden Arrow and Orient Express) with XL decos. Special thanks to Whatlep and his clear tutorial. I still have a doubt wrt the XL programming, should I set it as serial or parallel functions at the Navigator ?. If I set it as serial, pushing F1 several times I get the corresponding sound function activated or deactivated. If in parallel mode the sound functions do not seem to work with the corresponding Fx, however F8 reduces the speed by half as an XL feature. Any suggestions ?.
Best regards
Jose

Edit to add: I keep the speed to 14 steps CV 29= 4 and CV 49=11

 

[whatlep]

Hi all,
I managed to fit both Mallets (Golden Arrow and Orient Express) with XL decos. Special thanks to Whatlep and his clear tutorial. I still have a doubt wrt the XL programming, should I set it as serial or parallel functions at the Navigator ?. If I set it as serial, pushing F1 several times I get the corresponding sound function activated or deactivated. If in parallel mode the sound functions do not seem to work with the corresponding Fx, however F8 reduces the speed by half as an XL feature. Any suggestions ?.
Best regards
Jose

Thank you for the kind words. Set the XL to serial processing. You only need to press the desired "F" button once: the software transmits the relevant number of pulses automatically, though sometimes these get "lost" between central station/ radio transmitter & 55015/6 which gives strange results. That's a feature of serial processing, unfortunately.