Thanks Steve - I enjoy sharing my hobby with others, and learning how to do these various things. Just really frustrated about some of the footage being out of focus - very annoying. I have since got a new video app for my phone that lets me fix the focus while I film - hopefully that will solve that problem. Thanks for you support.
I did this to my A3 and it did work, but it was a fiddle to get the pickups bent inwards enough to allow the wheels to turn whilst still keeping in contact with them. When I serviced the same engine a year later I saw that the tender wheels were jamming up again so I disconnected the tender wire and, to be honest, I've found that Poole tender engines work well enough without tender pickups, even over insulated frogs (I would guess that the heavy diecast bodies help with this).
Hi! Loved this video. Very down to earth 'warts and all' style you have!! I have just got another old GF Duchess on which I was planning to do the same DCC and sound conversion. However I discovered is already has tender pickups. However, this is a mixed blessing as on one side the power connects via the chassis, so I am going to have to figure out how to isolate from the chassis and replace with a wired connection to match up to the body on which I'll have done the digihat trick as in your other video! Any idea as to how that might be achieved? Or know someone else who has already done it? Anyone else on this video welcome to contribute of course!
If you need to isolate the pickups from the chassis then you might well need a digihat. I have another video which shows me trying to fit one to my duchess.
I have read your comment a bit more carefully. The point is that the digihat isolates the motor brush from the chassis. It is not necessary to isolate the pickups from the chassis, in fact one of the pickups is deliberately connected to the chassis, although the other one needs to be isolated from the chassis.
@@naivegauge Thanks for the ultra rapid response. Yes indeed. I have seen your other video about installing the digihat to isolate the brush connections in the body of the loco, including remembering to heat the heatshrink!! My question here is more about how to achieve the isolation from the chassis in a DC based model where the tender already has pickups and uses the chassis for the connection - connecting to the body using a metal strip in the towbar - so that I don't end up with a short at the tender end. I'm thinking maybe of keeping the connection with the metal part of the tender, but somehow isolting the connection back to the engine body via that strip and replacing it with a direct wire back to the relevant decoder connection, as the decoder will already be in the tender anyway..? I was going to copy your entire installation approach but the existence of the tender pickup already in situ threw me. (By the way I also wanted to install the BR Lines tender pickups in an old GF Black 5 that has been too hesitant but discovered it has a completely different - and frankly rather cheap and nasty - all plastic tender design that renders the whole thing pretty impossible. Given up on it I'm afraid...)
@@naivegauge Yes yes! Of course. I should have realised. I think I was just looking at the fact that your installation of the tender pickups resulted in having two completely isolated and separate brass tabs to solder to. But so long as that single brush is completely isolated we won't get a short. That is going to make life a lot easier. As is the existence of the pickups on the tender already. Many thanks. Really enjoy all your videos!
I think the usual way to install tender pickups is that one pickup connects to the chassis of the tender (and via the drawbar to the chassis of the loco). The other tender pickup is isolated from the chassis and a wire is soldered to the tab and then connected to the top brush of the loco. However I used a bit of heatshrink so I could solder to both the tabs inside the loco, and then that was a covenant place to attach the decoder.
My track gets so bad, I've considered fitting pickups not only to the tender, but to all the carriages as well, with tiny plugs + sockets to connect the rolling stock together.
What did you consider using for your "tiny plugs and sockets"? I have considered similar things (in particular between stem locos and tenders) but everything was too big for n-scale.
@@naivegauge N Gauge would certainly be a challenge in that respect. I'm with HO/OO. I'd possibly go for the flat twin plugs and sockets that are used for charging the cheap "toy" drones and toy foam r/c planes. They are darned small. They'd certainly be usable with HO/OO. N Gauge ? - You'd need to check out the items against your rolling stock.
Hi Steve, Thanks for these videos on DCCing. I've just recently returned to the hobby and dug all my engines out and was considering fitting DCC to all my GraFar. I have an identical model which I stripped the other night to get a feeling for how they are wired up and then found your first video. Did you do a third video on fitting the decoder? Did you fit the decoder in the tender or manage to squeeze it into the cab?
no problem. I do not give my name in my videos, but some people what it is. However others getting my name wrong has become a bit of a theme in the last month or so!!!
It's a shame the video doesn't show how/where to attach the wire to the loco? I see the instructions says "between the top brush and the TV suppressor" but would have been good to show this.
Yep. If I do another tender, I may make another video, and try to make some of these things a bit clearer. the simple answer is that I cut off the suppression capacitor, and the soldered to the remnant of the capacitor leg.
![เจ็บที่ยังฮัก - ม่อน วรวิทย์ [ Official Mv ] จอนนี่มิวสิค](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KALIGSRSjFs/mqdefault.jpg)
Great tutorial to encourage others to do this mod to their loco's
Thanks Steve - I enjoy sharing my hobby with others, and learning how to do these various things.
Just really frustrated about some of the footage being out of focus - very annoying. I have since got a new video app for my phone that lets me fix the focus while I film - hopefully that will solve that problem. Thanks for you support.
I am sure you will sort it, I had no problem watching the vide, very hard to stay in focus with such small parts I imagine.
I did this to my A3 and it did work, but it was a fiddle to get the pickups bent inwards enough to allow the wheels to turn whilst still keeping in contact with them. When I serviced the same engine a year later I saw that the tender wheels were jamming up again so I disconnected the tender wire and, to be honest, I've found that Poole tender engines work well enough without tender pickups, even over insulated frogs (I would guess that the heavy diecast bodies help with this).
Hi! Loved this video. Very down to earth 'warts and all' style you have!! I have just got another old GF Duchess on which I was planning to do the same DCC and sound conversion. However I discovered is already has tender pickups. However, this is a mixed blessing as on one side the power connects via the chassis, so I am going to have to figure out how to isolate from the chassis and replace with a wired connection to match up to the body on which I'll have done the digihat trick as in your other video! Any idea as to how that might be achieved? Or know someone else who has already done it? Anyone else on this video welcome to contribute of course!
If you need to isolate the pickups from the chassis then you might well need a digihat. I have another video which shows me trying to fit one to my duchess.
I have read your comment a bit more carefully.
The point is that the digihat isolates the motor brush from the chassis. It is not necessary to isolate the pickups from the chassis, in fact one of the pickups is deliberately connected to the chassis, although the other one needs to be isolated from the chassis.
@@naivegauge Thanks for the ultra rapid response. Yes indeed. I have seen your other video about installing the digihat to isolate the brush connections in the body of the loco, including remembering to heat the heatshrink!! My question here is more about how to achieve the isolation from the chassis in a DC based model where the tender already has pickups and uses the chassis for the connection - connecting to the body using a metal strip in the towbar - so that I don't end up with a short at the tender end. I'm thinking maybe of keeping the connection with the metal part of the tender, but somehow isolting the connection back to the engine body via that strip and replacing it with a direct wire back to the relevant decoder connection, as the decoder will already be in the tender anyway..? I was going to copy your entire installation approach but the existence of the tender pickup already in situ threw me. (By the way I also wanted to install the BR Lines tender pickups in an old GF Black 5 that has been too hesitant but discovered it has a completely different - and frankly rather cheap and nasty - all plastic tender design that renders the whole thing pretty impossible. Given up on it I'm afraid...)
@@naivegauge Yes yes! Of course. I should have realised. I think I was just looking at the fact that your installation of the tender pickups resulted in having two completely isolated and separate brass tabs to solder to. But so long as that single brush is completely isolated we won't get a short. That is going to make life a lot easier. As is the existence of the pickups on the tender already. Many thanks. Really enjoy all your videos!
I think the usual way to install tender pickups is that one pickup connects to the chassis of the tender (and via the drawbar to the chassis of the loco). The other tender pickup is isolated from the chassis and a wire is soldered to the tab and then connected to the top brush of the loco.
However I used a bit of heatshrink so I could solder to both the tabs inside the loco, and then that was a covenant place to attach the decoder.
My track gets so bad, I've considered fitting pickups not only to the tender, but to all the carriages as well, with tiny plugs + sockets to connect the rolling stock together.
What did you consider using for your "tiny plugs and sockets"? I have considered similar things (in particular between stem locos and tenders) but everything was too big for n-scale.
@@naivegauge N Gauge would certainly be a challenge in that respect. I'm with HO/OO. I'd possibly go for the flat twin plugs and sockets that are used for charging the cheap "toy" drones and toy foam r/c planes. They are darned small. They'd certainly be usable with HO/OO. N Gauge ? - You'd need to check out the items against your rolling stock.
Hi Steve, Thanks for these videos on DCCing. I've just recently returned to the hobby and dug all my engines out and was considering fitting DCC to all my GraFar. I have an identical model which I stripped the other night to get a feeling for how they are wired up and then found your first video. Did you do a third video on fitting the decoder? Did you fit the decoder in the tender or manage to squeeze it into the cab?
There is a video on fitting the decoder. My name is not Steve!
OOOps. Sorry got the names confused. DOH
no problem. I do not give my name in my videos, but some people what it is. However others getting my name wrong has become a bit of a theme in the last month or so!!!
It's a shame the video doesn't show how/where to attach the wire to the loco? I see the instructions says "between the top brush and the TV suppressor" but would have been good to show this.
Yep. If I do another tender, I may make another video, and try to make some of these things a bit clearer.
the simple answer is that I cut off the suppression capacitor, and the soldered to the remnant of the capacitor leg.