Coggesrailway (Ian) asked me to convert his LGB 2095 "Whizzycranks" diesel to battery power. I say "his" diesel, but at the time he asked it was still at a shop in Holland, unseen apart from a sales photo! The commission would be to fit the 2095 with the Cliff Barker system that Ian had seen in use on several GSCers lines and a Li-ion battery for maximum running time. Since the 2095 is effectively a "shed on wheels", it sounded like a straightforward exercise....
Anyway, within days a package arrived from Holland. Once Mrs Whatlep had been calmed down ("It's for someone else, dear. Now put the shotgun on the floor."), the package was duly opened and examined:
You have to expect an odd surprise when acquiring items unseen. So no great emotion to find that one brake pipe was missing nor that there was a rattle inside the body. A little strange to find that both bogies had a wheelset with a traction tyre and that there was no trace of a driver (not even a glue smear), but definitely unexpected to find that the loco was not a 2095. No, it was a fairly early 2096, the sound-fitted variant. A quick check of the loco showed that it had definitely been tinkered with previously, with random screws both old and new LGB patterns evident. The gearboxes were the old "split" pattern, but wheels and pickups showed hardly any wear at all. DCC was also clearly OK as I could program the decoder. Unhappily, test runs were a source for concern. The loco would run in both DCC and analogue modes, but with nasty "graunching" noises at slow speed and no sounds from the onboard kit. Oh dear: had Ian bought a lemon that someone had put together from bits?
The next step was to take off the body shell. Inside was a maelstrom of "spaghetti wiring". The source of the rattle was obvious. Whoever had installed the DCC had mislaid several screws and failed to fix the old mainboard back in place. Twit! So, a steady process of removing bits commenced. First to go were the DCC chips:
Welcome back to the DCC of 2001! For your entertainment we have a Lenz DCC chip, a booster chip (like an LGB 55030) to cope with the second motor and an add-on function board to cope with the power demands of the sound card. About £100 in 2001 (or roughly twice that in 2011 money). All now capable of being replaced with a single Massoth XL chip and worth absolutely nothing!
Once the DCC kit had been removed, the loco's original main board could be checked over. Although Ian had only asked for a conversion, I hoped to be able to save the original LGB components, just in case Ian ever wanted to restore the loco to analogue or DCC operation. Happily, as soon as power was applied to the relevant terminals, the loco burst into life with sound too. Not very good sound of course: we're talking 1980s "Space Invaders" stuff! Even better, running was quieter, though still jerky at slow speed. Presumably the Lenz chips' frequencies were not as tuned to LGB motors as today's DCC kit, giving most of the "graunchy" noise.
The remainder of the day was a steady process of reducing Mr Whizzycranks to a series of parts. First the main board was removed for storage. Next it was time to attack the bogies and motors:
Because the loco had been converted to run DCC, the previous owner had already electrically isolated the motors from the track pickups and soldered track supply wires to the connection points on the old-fashioned splt bogies. However, I still had to dismantle the whole shebang to remove all the plunger pickups and skates. Not only is that good practice in battery conversions to avoid a battery loco feeding power into the track (probably killing any attached DCC system), but it also makes any loco incredibly free-running compared to its original self.
So off came the wheels and the skates and out pinged the carbon pickups and their springs. Both sides have to be done, of course. All bits and pieces again bagged up to be saved in case of retro-fitting to analogue/DCC. The four screws (plus one underneath) give access to the innards of the gearbox. In theory, I didn't need to get into the gearbox since no rewiring was needed, but I followed a hunch.
Sure enough, there was no lubrication at all on the gears, though at some point someone had clearly oiled them (twit again!), rather than correctly applying grease which is what I now did. The look-round also confirmed that proper Buhler motors had been retained and that the wiring was in adequate shape, albeit a bit pinched in places.
The bogies were both now completely reassembled, taking care to not trap the motor wires. New traction tyres were installed at the same time as those in place had lost any flexibility. I wonder, did both bogies on these early 2095s have a traction tyre, or had a previous owner been playing with parts as I suspected on first examination? Once satisfied, the bogies were bench-tested to make sure everything still worked. Result! Not only did the motors still turn, but performance was noticeably smoother. Grease is the word.....
So ended day 1. Tomorrow would be battery day!
Anyway, within days a package arrived from Holland. Once Mrs Whatlep had been calmed down ("It's for someone else, dear. Now put the shotgun on the floor."), the package was duly opened and examined:
You have to expect an odd surprise when acquiring items unseen. So no great emotion to find that one brake pipe was missing nor that there was a rattle inside the body. A little strange to find that both bogies had a wheelset with a traction tyre and that there was no trace of a driver (not even a glue smear), but definitely unexpected to find that the loco was not a 2095. No, it was a fairly early 2096, the sound-fitted variant. A quick check of the loco showed that it had definitely been tinkered with previously, with random screws both old and new LGB patterns evident. The gearboxes were the old "split" pattern, but wheels and pickups showed hardly any wear at all. DCC was also clearly OK as I could program the decoder. Unhappily, test runs were a source for concern. The loco would run in both DCC and analogue modes, but with nasty "graunching" noises at slow speed and no sounds from the onboard kit. Oh dear: had Ian bought a lemon that someone had put together from bits?
The next step was to take off the body shell. Inside was a maelstrom of "spaghetti wiring". The source of the rattle was obvious. Whoever had installed the DCC had mislaid several screws and failed to fix the old mainboard back in place. Twit! So, a steady process of removing bits commenced. First to go were the DCC chips:
Welcome back to the DCC of 2001! For your entertainment we have a Lenz DCC chip, a booster chip (like an LGB 55030) to cope with the second motor and an add-on function board to cope with the power demands of the sound card. About £100 in 2001 (or roughly twice that in 2011 money). All now capable of being replaced with a single Massoth XL chip and worth absolutely nothing!
Once the DCC kit had been removed, the loco's original main board could be checked over. Although Ian had only asked for a conversion, I hoped to be able to save the original LGB components, just in case Ian ever wanted to restore the loco to analogue or DCC operation. Happily, as soon as power was applied to the relevant terminals, the loco burst into life with sound too. Not very good sound of course: we're talking 1980s "Space Invaders" stuff! Even better, running was quieter, though still jerky at slow speed. Presumably the Lenz chips' frequencies were not as tuned to LGB motors as today's DCC kit, giving most of the "graunchy" noise.
The remainder of the day was a steady process of reducing Mr Whizzycranks to a series of parts. First the main board was removed for storage. Next it was time to attack the bogies and motors:
Because the loco had been converted to run DCC, the previous owner had already electrically isolated the motors from the track pickups and soldered track supply wires to the connection points on the old-fashioned splt bogies. However, I still had to dismantle the whole shebang to remove all the plunger pickups and skates. Not only is that good practice in battery conversions to avoid a battery loco feeding power into the track (probably killing any attached DCC system), but it also makes any loco incredibly free-running compared to its original self.
So off came the wheels and the skates and out pinged the carbon pickups and their springs. Both sides have to be done, of course. All bits and pieces again bagged up to be saved in case of retro-fitting to analogue/DCC. The four screws (plus one underneath) give access to the innards of the gearbox. In theory, I didn't need to get into the gearbox since no rewiring was needed, but I followed a hunch.
Sure enough, there was no lubrication at all on the gears, though at some point someone had clearly oiled them (twit again!), rather than correctly applying grease which is what I now did. The look-round also confirmed that proper Buhler motors had been retained and that the wiring was in adequate shape, albeit a bit pinched in places.
The bogies were both now completely reassembled, taking care to not trap the motor wires. New traction tyres were installed at the same time as those in place had lost any flexibility. I wonder, did both bogies on these early 2095s have a traction tyre, or had a previous owner been playing with parts as I suspected on first examination? Once satisfied, the bogies were bench-tested to make sure everything still worked. Result! Not only did the motors still turn, but performance was noticeably smoother. Grease is the word.....
So ended day 1. Tomorrow would be battery day!
