Piko BR24 [External Link]
- Thread starter muns
- Start date
That MUST be some form of inverted marketing ploy, Mark!muns said:Keith had my last one...but more arrived yesterday
Well, the nice man from Parcelfarce has just delivered my BR24 - 520 Euros (about £380) plus just 10 Euros for shipping it from Germany. 
Now to open it up, look it over and see if the decoder installation is as simple as folks say!
Jon.
Now to open it up, look it over and see if the decoder installation is as simple as folks say!
Jon.
OK.... it's up on the test rollers and running nicely on a basic analogue controller - seems nice and smooth in forward and reverse, all LEDs are bright, all looks good so far! It's a pretty loco....
So - first question (mainly to Alan or Keith as you've already done one, but of course anyone else who knows is welcome to comment!).... under the removable filler cover at the rear of the tender is a small switch for the smoke unit on/off... I assume the green wire from it is the one that connects to F1 on the XLS, and I'm thinking that you then leave the switch in the "ON" poisition and allow the decoder function to do the actual switching of the smoke on and off?
Second question.... next to said switch is what I assume to be a volume control pot for the sound.... it has three empty screw terminals, anyone (Alan, Keith, Muns?) know which terminal goes to which wire of a Massoth 3-pin micro-CT plug in order to make the volume manually adjustable?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Jon.
So - first question (mainly to Alan or Keith as you've already done one, but of course anyone else who knows is welcome to comment!).... under the removable filler cover at the rear of the tender is a small switch for the smoke unit on/off... I assume the green wire from it is the one that connects to F1 on the XLS, and I'm thinking that you then leave the switch in the "ON" poisition and allow the decoder function to do the actual switching of the smoke on and off?
Second question.... next to said switch is what I assume to be a volume control pot for the sound.... it has three empty screw terminals, anyone (Alan, Keith, Muns?) know which terminal goes to which wire of a Massoth 3-pin micro-CT plug in order to make the volume manually adjustable?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Jon.
1) I would suspect so Jon,
2) Wire the cable in plat, i.e. wire on the left to the left terminal of the three, centre to centre, right to right. Try it. if the volume control does not work, reverse the outer two wires.
2) Wire the cable in plat, i.e. wire on the left to the left terminal of the three, centre to centre, right to right. Try it. if the volume control does not work, reverse the outer two wires.
muns said:
Thanks Mark! I'm not going to risk letting any of the magic smoke out if it's the wrong way round, am I....?
Jon.
You shouldn't do (famous last words!) - if you post a close up of the Piko board I may be able be more definite
I don't know if I can get a useable shot of it, Mark, the terminals are hidden under the tender body - but I'll have to unscrew the board anyway in order to connect anything to it, so I will loosen it and see if I can move it far enough to get a pic!
Best,
Jon.
Best,
Jon.
Just an observation, while running-in the loco on the test rollers: I tried out the smoke generator, and like most non-pulsed ones it works after a fashion but is really, as expected, pretty crap.
Wonder if there is room for a Massoth pulsed smoker, maybe even with the new cylinder-smoke adaptor kit..... ?
Jon.
Wonder if there is room for a Massoth pulsed smoker, maybe even with the new cylinder-smoke adaptor kit..... ?
Jon.
If it is anything like the 64 then a little bit of carving may be needed
I believe they (Massoth) are going to produce a "how to" to do just that (when - who knows!)
I believe they (Massoth) are going to produce a "how to" to do just that (when - who knows!)
Keiths smokes very well. Noticeably well - but thats just chance I think. we didn't use the volume pot. Yes the switch is the smoke but F7 is just as good. Yes green wire to smoke
Hi Mark, just sent you an email with some pics of the rear board from the BR24 tender - showing the three connections to the volume pot.....
If we can figure it out, I'll post the pics here later for other people's reference!
Jon.
If we can figure it out, I'll post the pics here later for other people's reference!
Jon.
Quick update before bed..... IT WORKS!
All connected up (all wiring colours double- and triple-checked!), including wires to volume pot - tested on analogue on the rollers and all works great! One of the big advantages of using an XLS rather than Piko's own decoder and SUSI sound module, is that with the Massoth decoder the sound works on analogue as well as DCC - with the Piko setup, it doesn't.
Wiring up the factory-installed volume control according to Mark's diagram works perfectly, and gives great control from silent to "wake the neighbours three doors down"!
Tomorrow morning I'll test it on DCC, then reassemble the tender - though the instructions say you can do the install by just removing the coal load from the tender, I found it MUCH easier to get at everything (and some of the wires are fiddly, as they are so short) once I had removed the entire tender body from the chassis. Just got to remember to reconnect the top rear light when I put the tender body back....
Thanks all, Mark, Alan and Keith especially, for help and advice!
I took some pics during the job, will post some of them plus some extra notes and hints shortly (but not tonight)....
Jon.
All connected up (all wiring colours double- and triple-checked!), including wires to volume pot - tested on analogue on the rollers and all works great! One of the big advantages of using an XLS rather than Piko's own decoder and SUSI sound module, is that with the Massoth decoder the sound works on analogue as well as DCC - with the Piko setup, it doesn't.
Wiring up the factory-installed volume control according to Mark's diagram works perfectly, and gives great control from silent to "wake the neighbours three doors down"!
Tomorrow morning I'll test it on DCC, then reassemble the tender - though the instructions say you can do the install by just removing the coal load from the tender, I found it MUCH easier to get at everything (and some of the wires are fiddly, as they are so short) once I had removed the entire tender body from the chassis. Just got to remember to reconnect the top rear light when I put the tender body back....
Thanks all, Mark, Alan and Keith especially, for help and advice!
I took some pics during the job, will post some of them plus some extra notes and hints shortly (but not tonight)....
Jon.
Sunday morning, and it's all back together and still working!
The body of the tender comes on and off quite easily - just 4 screws, though two of them are sunk deep into holes in the chassis and need a long-ish screwdriver to reach. Now that it's back on, the sound is SO much better than in last night's body-off first test, as the tender body provides a great sound chamber for the big Visaton FRS-7 speaker.
Despite Piko's recommendation otherwise, it is VERY much easier to do the decoder wiring with the tender body removed, as otherwise you're trying to fiddle with very short connecting wires within quite a narrow space - as Keith mentioned above, if only Piko would make the wires just a couple of cm longer it would be so much easier.... but in the end it all fitted, it's useful that, whether by chance or design, all the necessary connections to the Massoth XLS are at one end of the board - none of the terminals at the other end are used, which is good as they would be almost impossible to connect to without splicing and lengthening some of the wires! Presumably if you use the Piko decoder it screws back onto the four posts that originally held the basic analogue connection board, but this doesn't fit with the XLS so I trimmed a few mm off one of the posts and then secured the decoder to it with just a single mounting screw, so that it just rests on the other three posts, but its location - tucked right into the front corner when the body is put back - coupled with the shortness of the wires connected to it will stop it from moving around, I hope!
I would certainly commend Piko on making a loco where the decoder install - even of third-party kit like the XLS - is so relatively straightforward - a darn sight easier than most LGB installs I've attempted!
Off to a local G Scale Society open afternoon in a couple of hours, will take the BR24 along so she can get her first taste of the open (rail)road.....
Jon.
The body of the tender comes on and off quite easily - just 4 screws, though two of them are sunk deep into holes in the chassis and need a long-ish screwdriver to reach. Now that it's back on, the sound is SO much better than in last night's body-off first test, as the tender body provides a great sound chamber for the big Visaton FRS-7 speaker.
Despite Piko's recommendation otherwise, it is VERY much easier to do the decoder wiring with the tender body removed, as otherwise you're trying to fiddle with very short connecting wires within quite a narrow space - as Keith mentioned above, if only Piko would make the wires just a couple of cm longer it would be so much easier.... but in the end it all fitted, it's useful that, whether by chance or design, all the necessary connections to the Massoth XLS are at one end of the board - none of the terminals at the other end are used, which is good as they would be almost impossible to connect to without splicing and lengthening some of the wires! Presumably if you use the Piko decoder it screws back onto the four posts that originally held the basic analogue connection board, but this doesn't fit with the XLS so I trimmed a few mm off one of the posts and then secured the decoder to it with just a single mounting screw, so that it just rests on the other three posts, but its location - tucked right into the front corner when the body is put back - coupled with the shortness of the wires connected to it will stop it from moving around, I hope!
I would certainly commend Piko on making a loco where the decoder install - even of third-party kit like the XLS - is so relatively straightforward - a darn sight easier than most LGB installs I've attempted!
Off to a local G Scale Society open afternoon in a couple of hours, will take the BR24 along so she can get her first taste of the open (rail)road.....
Jon.
I stand corrected - I missed that.muns said:And I gave him a free 3way MiniCT cable too! Never again!