Sunset Models/3rd Rail SD40-2 - an inside look

These have certainly come a LONG way since I took apart my FL9 of 2014.  That was a mass of spaghetti with no color-coded wires.  Needless to say, it took "All of Scott's forces and all of his men to put my FL9 back together again!"

I'll be following this with interest.   

Looking good Mike! I look forward to following along with your progress on these upgrades.

@Mike DeBerg thank you for taking the time to post photos, providing us with a detailed look "under the hood."  Just a couple of questions...

1. Is this loco from 3rd Rail's most recent release of SD40-2's (2024 release)?

2. Did you also remove the flywheel, or did this loco not have a flywheel from the factory?

2a. If it didn't have a flywheel and you quickly cut the power, does it coast or have any kind of "momentum" built into the electronics?  How is it going over switches or dirty track?

Thanks again for sharing!!

@Ted S posted:

@Mike DeBerg thank you for taking the time to post photos, providing us with a detailed look "under the hood."  Just a couple of questions...

1. Is this loco from 3rd Rail's most recent release of SD40-2's (2024 release)?

2. Did you also remove the flywheel, or did this loco not have a flywheel from the factory?

2a. If it didn't have a flywheel and you quickly cut the power, does it coast or have any kind of "momentum" built into the electronics?  How is it going over switches or dirty track?

Thanks again for sharing!!

Ted,

Absolutely this is the 2024 release of the 3rd Rail SD40-2's. In fact, I am not aware of any other 3rd Rail SD40-2 releases?

Correct, there is no flywheel in the 2R version, not certain about the 3R version.

What I can tell you is that the loco does come to a stop rather quickly "out of the box" as indicated by the deceleration time default in the Loksound decoder.

This obviously can be adjusted to simulate that coast/inertia capability in a number of ways through the decoder, I use these acceleration and deceleration values adjusted for operation with my Protothrottle as noted below and then set values for the brake functions and assign those functions to a function key (F6 in my case) which gets assigned on the Protothrottle to apply the brake as I move the brake lever.  This same setup works great on standard throttles as well, but instead of moving the brake lever it's a push of the function button (F6).  I use TCS EWT-50 Wifi throttles.

Happy to help further with the setup either with regular DCC or Protothrottle.

The LokProgrammer is used to adjust these settings and any others for that matter, "Brake Settings" allows the user to adjust the brake functions and "Driving characteristics" is where you adjust the acceleration / deceleration times.

One of my engines ran unevenly at slow speeds so I opened "Motor settings" under "Change decoder settings" and adjusted the load control for regulation reference and regulation parameters "K" and "I" to smooth out low speed operation. This is discussed in the LokSound 5 Instruction Manual.

I loaded a different EMD 16-645E3 sound file into all of my SD40-2's and remapped the number boards, front ditch lights and cab light to different function keys. There is also a template pack for 14 user selectable air horns and 2 bells to further customize sounds.

Hi Catnap

I was wondering why you choose that particular  EMD sound file and what differeences there are compared to the preloaded one ?

Thanks

Richard

ESU probably has at least 5 EMD 645E3 sound files. There are subtle differences in sounds from one file to another. I just happened to like the soundset from that particular file. I think the startup sequence was different.

That’s the beauty of DCC, if you like to tinker and fuss with different settings you can easily customize your locomotive project with the LokProgrammer.