Marklin Maxi digital on MTS? does it work? anyone tried?

[Chris Olive]

Does any kind soul know if a Marklin Maxi gauge 1 loco that is fitted with the system that says its '[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"]Able to operate with DC power, AC power, Marklin Delta power, or Digital power sources' will actually work on an LGB MTS layout? Hope someone has tried!
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[ntpntpntp]

No, not out of the box. but you can remove the Delta chip and replace with a DCC chip - I've done this with a Maxi "Jenny". Here's a link to a write-up about it:

http://www.falconer-family.org.uk/marklin_54505_dcc_fitting.html

Worth noting that I use an NCE DCC system at 18 volts not MTS, but the principle is the same and an NRMA DCC decoder should work just fine on MTS as long as it's rated for the higher working voltage of MTS (up to 24 volts I think?). To be on the safe side you could fit an LGB small loco decoder (55022 I think?) or the Massoth equivalent, but they'll cost a bit more.

Also worth noting that I left the smoke unit wired directly to the track (via the fitted switch). As I mentioned in the write-up above, I don't know for sure what the max volts of the smoke unit is built for, so again the 24V of MTS might be pushing it a bit?

 

[Brixham]

Recently I followed the falconer link shown above to convert a Marklin loco to enable running with LGB analogue trains.

I had to reverse the connections from the pickups to the motor to get the correct direction, see the white wires cross. I do need to cut the ends of the tracks, as the board could touch the chassis, shorting everything out. The black tape is to prevent shorts to the chassis bottom, also the Marklin delta board is thicker than stripboard.

I may make a second board with rather neater cuts, and do a swap, then modify the first board.

Instead of the white loop wires, it would be quite easy to install a decoder with this method. There's not much room under the chassis, so the decoder may be better off inside the boiler or firebox.

Malcolm

 

[Brixham]

This is a basic Marklin 'starter' loco, with only 4 wires appearing on the connector block..... 2 track pickups and 2 motor feeds. The smoke is separately wired, through a switch in the cab. The headlight is non directional.
Power is only collected from the front 4 wheels and the sprung sliders, the rear driven axle has no provision. As the wheel flanges are shallower than LGB, they don't touch the contact strips on the large frog points, such as LGB R5, or Piko curved points, and the loco stalls!

I do need a spare set of the black plastic blocks that the power pickups attach to, as seen in the previous picture, I have a second loco that has them missing. I should have clipped the cab roof back on properly.

The valve gear has been 'simplified', the more expensive locos have a better representation.

 

[dunnyrail]

This is a basic Marklin 'starter' loco, with only 4 wires appearing on the connector block..... 2 track pickups and 2 motor feeds. The smoke is separately wired, through a switch in the cab. The headlight is non directional.
Power is only collected from the front 4 wheels and the sprung sliders, the rear driven axle has no provision. As the wheel flanges are shallower than LGB, they don't touch the contact strips on the large frog points, such as LGB R5, or Piko curved points, and the loco stalls!

I do need a spare set of the black plastic blocks that the power pickups attach to, as seen in the previous picture, I have a second loco that has them missing. I should have clipped the cab roof back on properly.

The valve gear has been 'simplified', the more expensive locos have a better representation.

View attachment 310138

Oh not that often we see the Marklin Gauge 1 bits in here, that looks to be a very nice usable chassis to me. How does it cope with LGB or similar track?

 

[Brixham]

To avoid hijacking this topic, I’ve found an existing thread called Marklin Maxi gauge 1 questions and posted some info there.

Malcolm