MTH PS1 K4 Legacy update

@Rppoind posted:

I shelved this project last fall after gathering all the parts plus connectors with pins and wires.  I have Bruk's excellent wiring diagrams from this forum. It's time to put this thing together. My "core" is a MTH PS1 Pennsylvania K4 cab 5400. I've stripped out all of the old electronics,cleaned and lubed gearbox and linkage. Very pleased with how smooth and quite the Pittman motor and gearbox operate. Running on rollers using a bench DC supply I watched the milliamps drop to 450 after an hour or so. The RCMC seems to fit best up in the boiler area. Railsounds Lite and LTC1 will be in the tender.

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

Richard

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

Richard

Yes you can, but the biggest thing about hiding the antenna in the coal pile is location, location, location, …..Trust me, I’ve learned what does and doesn’t work as far as where you can hide the antenna. You have to imagine the tender shell as a rectangle. Wherever the metal ends, is part of the rectangle. That “imaginary “ rectangle is the plane. What I’ve found is you have to be outside that plane. So too far inside that rectangular plane, the “imaginary” line, and you can lose reception. The higher the antenna is away from the rectangle, the better the reception is. I usually leave the stock coal pile virtually alone, and drill through the top of the coal bunker from the inside, then using soft thin sheet brass, form the brass to the top of the pile. Solder a leader to the brass, then color the brass with a black sharpie. Cement that to the original coal pile, after threading the wire through the hole. Cement new coal to the blackened brass to hide, spreading it out over the old coal for a nice blend in…….I usually leave this step to absolute end, this way I can test my reception and be sure I can control the engine 100% with no reception issues,….you can temporarily tape down the brass strip and see what you can & can not get away with,…..your layout may vary, but I can tell you from experience, it’s easy to to get the antenna too low & have no reception, or lose it on various places …..

Pat

@Rppoind posted:

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

You can also float the antenna shell.  For the last couple I've done, I cut out a gasket from .020 black Styrene sheet and used nylon screws to attach the shell back on.  The shell becomes the antenna, and I can assure you, it's a good antenna!   This is a similar technique to what Weaver and SGL used to use for their TMCC locomotives, but they had the gaskets punched out of something like thick fishpaper.

Pat and John.......Many thanks for your responses. I have have floated a tender shell using kapton tape and nylon screws. I'll experiment with coal first but check operation before adding more on top. Good to know using a tether lead will work! I will also have BT on this engine.

Richard

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You can also float the antenna shell.  For the last couple I've done, I cut out a gasket from .020 black Styrene sheet and used nylon screws to attach the shell back on.  The shell becomes the antenna, and I can assure you, it's a good antenna!   This is a similar technique to what Weaver and SGL used to use for their TMCC locomotives, but they had the gaskets punched out of something like thick fishpaper.

If it’s done clean & neat like you suggest with a fixed gasket, then ok, but too many I’ve torn apart had gooey, gummy, nasty electrical tape affixed to the frame, with all kinds of wallered out holes to make the tender frame holes not rise up into the tender stand offs,…not to mention the amount of times I couldn’t get the nylon screw out of the hole cause there’s nothing left to grab, or it just spins because the over zealous installer cranked on it like a grade 8 bolt 😂😂😂…

Pat

Well, first off, I'd like to strangle anyone that ever uses black electrical tape anywhere on a locomotive!

As far as wallered out holes, I use nylon screws that match the existing holes, I don't do anything to the holes.  The reason I use the small diameter handled Whia drivers is so it's not possible for me to get carried away with torque.  I have used Kapton tape if it's a difficult build that I need to wrap the tape around the frame for insulation to work, but I do prefer the gasket as a clean solution.

Weaver and SGL used shoulder washers for the holes so they didn't need nylon screws, but that would require enlarging the frame holes, something that I prefer not to do.

GRJ and others....I'm trying to test my RCMC board out of the Locomotive. (Product 1831060) I have been running the chassis and Pittman motor with sensor mounted but not connected on rollers with a dc supply. It runs fine with no screw contact on sensor. I used Kapton on back of sensor. Connector J11 is wired per Bruk's diagram 2. to a known working cab 1 TMCC layout rails and my motor. J3 is connected to the sensor board per Bruk's diagram. The sensor plug is wired assuming the sensor is drawn looking at the flywheel side. J1a is connected to a 11 inch wire as antenna. I do not have a connector in J1b. I am assuming that open run/program is in run? and eng 1 is the shipped default. Manual for this Lionel K4 says eng 1. There are no other connectors installed.

When I power up track in TMCC and choose eng one It spins for a minute or two at moderate speed in reverse. I have motor terminal 1 on blue per Bruk's diagram. After a minute or so it stops. Am I missing a connection?

Richard

You should be able to run the motor of the RCMC with power and motor brushes on J10 or J11, an antenna on the TMCC receiver, and the 4-pin Odyssey II connector to J3.  Pin-1 on J1 is closest to the TMCC receiver, that should be wired to pin-1 on the motor sensor board (square pad).  Obviously, the other three wire positions should be obvious once you've loaded pin-1.

None of the other connections need to be made to operate the board.  For testing without setting the ID, I use TMCC #99, it's the universal setting for all engines for the RCMC and later boards.  If the motor truly spins for a minute or two before stopping, then I'd suspect a board issue.  If the sensor isn't working, the motor will only spin a few seconds at most before it stops with a motor fault error.

Many thanks John.......I will make sure of my wiring and go from there.

regards

Richard

John.......My wiring is correct square pad on sensor to closest pin to receiver on J1. Also I have +5v on pin 1 and 3 on the sensor. I am ordering a new sensor from Lionel. Motor still ran a short time and shut down. Hopefully problem is not the RCMC. I will report back. If this had to happen I'm glad I found it before I wired everything. Thanks again for your help.

Richard

I did try #99. Was not aware of that. This is a learning process.

Richard

What you need is a test set.   When I run across an RCMC that I am not sure of, this is the acid test.

Yes.......Testing new incoming parts would be good. Is the bom on OGR somewhere? I am interested. Also you are correct on motor spin up lasting only a few seconds. I got a bit longer run by advancing the throttle. Lionel shipped a new sensor today. I'll post results.

Richard

Top suspect is the sensor or the wiring, try the new sensor and make sure the wiring is solid before you consider the RCMC.

John.......Problem solved. It was a bad sensor board. Runs nice and smooth both directions. Your tip on eng #99 was right on. Thanks for the help. I'm back to work on finishing up this project.

Richard

Good news.......My Legacy MTH PS 1 K-4 conversion is complete and running. Took way too long but is running and sounding great. The combination of a MTH chassis,Pittman motor and Lionel RCMC is outstanding. Thanks to Pat for info on tender antenna and a tip on motor sensor screw clearance. Thanks also to GRJ on sources of pre crimped connectors and troubleshooting a bad sensor board. Bruk's excellent wiring diagrams and advice on proper RCMC board part number was very helpful. I would be happy to provide additional information to anyone interested.

Richard

We need pictures or a video.

I will do that soon.

Richard

Can't wait.

Let's see if this works. Pennsy guys I have a heavyweight consist for this engine.

Well it works. Sorry about the dup. First video I have uploaded to OGR.

Richard

Your next challenge, if you decide to accept it, use an IR drawbar for a truly wireless connection to the tender.

I'll try that were it will work. This job required a antenna lead to the tender and a program run pair to a switch in the tender. If anyone knows a way to switch the RCMC J18 group of four open/close switches in a small package i'm all ears. I did hardwire the aux smoke to off in the engine. Next video I do will be better lit and at a higher definition setting.

Richard

You don't need the cruise switch as I've never used one of those yet on the Legacy engines.  For the K4 you can insulate the pilot and use that for an antenna.