So here we go again trashing another investment, this time over a Grand’s worth. Never mind at least with this job I should turn Pfiffi into a ‘really useful engine’. As this is a DCC Loco with a very nice Zimo MX696 Sound Chip I had always decided that it would be a DCC Battery job. Now that Fosworks has upped their game somewhat with 12 Function Buttons I am going to use that rather than an Aristocraft one. This job other than the breakdown and put back together should not be anything like as complex as the Piko 25 Tonner, famous last words! But as always Battery Fitting is the main issue and to facilitate that the Smoke Unit has been removed, it took up a lot of space in the Smokebox and I never use them any way. In fact the one fitted to Pfiffi makes such a racket when working (common to all the motorised Smoke Units I believe) that it annoyed me more than you could believe. So bye bye Smoke unit. The weight below it has also gone, but this should be more than compensated for by the Batteries. The inside has a lot of excess Plastic Moulding to hold it in place so this was also razor sawed out. This now gave space for this Battery Configuration (shown is a Test Lash up of normal cells).
A few more bits of Plastic were removed after this picture was taken as the boiler would not slot into the Smokebox with the 10 batteries fitted so a little more wriggle room was required.
I calculated the Value if the 10 shown and decided that a few more would be prudent so another lash of 4 was tested out for space and they fit nicely as shown in behind the Speaker on top of the Chip. This has a topmost surface of some sort of inert material glued to it so the location should work out just fine.
Next up was to fit the Switches and Charging Socket. I always intended to have a DPDT CO Switch to facilitate Track or Battery Power, required for any alterations to the Chip if nothing else. Had I decided to fit the Aristocraft system I could have dispenced with this as that system has the facility to update chips. As Pfiffi is not the best runner on Track Power (well mine isn't anyway though others have found them to be fine) I deduced that fitting in the Cab as close to the door as possible would make them accesible plus a couple of figures inside the can should make the one the other side pretty well invisible. So that is where they fitted and the wires fit into the Box below in front of the Cab Steps nicely. Wires have all been soldered up to the DPDT CO Switch and the line in from the Track spit to allow the Power to the battery or Track via the DPDT CO Switch. As is my normal logic, the switch is changed forwards to be Battery Power and the Battery one also for on. Charging Socket was fitted to the front of this Box at the Right Hand Side looking towards the Chimney, accesible but pretty near invisible from a normal viewpoint. The wires needed acces to the inside of the boiler and to facilitate this some Plastic was taken off the bottom outside of the Front Cab Spectacle, not much more than 10mm or so. Next view shows the Switches mounted under the Cab Footplate.
Then with the Footplate mounted on the Chassis. Some Black Gaffe Tape secures the wires and a bit of Heatshrink disguises the DPDT ones comming out from below. The Fosworks Loom on the far side has been disguised with Gaffe Tape.
The long Yellow and Red wire connect to the Fosworks DCC system, the only other wires attached to that are the 2 Battery Wires. Very simples.
So now I await the Batteries ordered yesterday, I will also need to redefine the Loco to Chip No3 as that is what the Fosworks DCC Setup has been delivered as, though this can be changed when ordering.
A pretty quick start up this far as this was all achieved yesterday morning.
