Making Syncrosmoke locos DCC fitted

[The son of Triangman]

Making Syncrosmoke locos DCC fitted.

Well here comes theat tricky chestnut of making syncrosmoke locos DCC fitted.

First job is to fit a tiny thin piece of insulating material will need to be placed under the smoke unit casting so there is

no electrical contact between chassis and casting, making sure that the gear that drives the piston of the smoke unit still makes meshes with the drive gear so the insulation will be thin, very thin.

Next replace the smoke unit fixing screw with a non

conductive screw, I use a nylon electronics bolt cut down to size with a nylon washer and then use thread lock to lock it into place, this stops the casting moving around as well, it can take the heat of the casting so no problemo.

The red feed wire

will need to be removed from the brush feed clip and a 120 ohm or 130 ohm resistor fitted to the red feed wite stop damage to decoder output. Fit a suitable resistor on or above the 120 or 130 ohm mark as a minimum resitance, I usually fit around 130 ohms

to 150 ohms depending on the units element and it's age and current draw.

A feed wire will then need to be attached to the casting, a small 8BA hole is drilled into the top of the casting and tapped for an 8BA screw, a standard S.1011 screw of the type

fitted to Tri-ang loco pickup plates and many other bits is ideal, you will also need a suitable 8BA solder tag or modern equivalent. A black wire is then attached to the solder tag and the screw fitted.

You now have a DCC ready Syncrosmoke unit, the

unit should then be linked up to the decoder output of your choice using Blue as the common wire as per normal.

This is a Son of Triangman method and may not suit all here, it is a meant as a guide only.

[The son of Triangman]

Note you will need to do a current draw test for the smoke unit under noraml DC operation. It is adviseable to protect the smoke unit element with a suitable resistance.

[The son of Triangman]

I am not responsible if you make a mistake and wreck your loco and this is only meant as a guide

[Chrissaf]

This thread is the second part of a two part DCC fitting article......

.

Son of Triangman's first article on DCCing the X.03 / .04 Motor can be found here:

Making the X03 and X04 motor DCC fitted the proper way.