Cabin Light. Hi All, 1

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1 Hi All, My friend Rudolf set me a challenge for his electric locomotive, wanting Telex couplers fitted. When I opened up the locomotive I discovered there is very little room to add extra components but with much thinking and measuring I managed to add enough components to give me a third Aux function for a cabin light that only comes on when the locomotive is stationary. The locomotive does an un-coupling shuffle in either forward or reverse using the F1 function key as designed by ESU on the V4.0 decoders. The front and rear lights use Rule 17 to dim the lights when the locomotive is stationary. Warning: - You undertake the following modifications at your own risk. Drilling a hole and cutting a printed circuit board (PCB) is required to complete the conversion. Cabin Light I decided to start by adding the cabin light which is a PLCC2 warm white LED. A grey wire was soldered to the cathode side of the LED and a black wire was soldered to the anode. Using hot melt glue I glued a small rectangle of plastic to the bottom of the LED to act as an insulator then glued this assembly to the metal cabin roof as shown. The wires were also glued in place to prevent them being visible when looking through the cabin windows. For the cabin insert I drilled a 1.5mm hole (red arrow) to thread the wires through and for the final touch I found a figure to be the driver as an added feature. 1

2 Cabin Light Once the wires were threaded through the hole in the insert I carefully positioned the pantograph contact in its hole and clipped the cabin insert into place. Next I stripped the plastic off two Harwin rolled pin sockets and trimmed the wires to length and soldered the wires to the socket side and finally covered them in heat shrink making two separate plugs as shown. The black wire was marked with a white paint marker to indicate the +pole connection, this was the easy part of the conversion. Decoder Wiring Details Description Colour Motor R Grey Motor L Orange Ground Black Centre Rail Red + Pole Blue Head Light White Rear Light Yellow Aux 1 Green Aux 2 Violet Aux 3 Brown I soldered the wires required to the correct solder pads as shown in the ESU manual for the LokPilot V4.0 decoder. You will notice that there is an extra black wire (top left) which is soldered to a long rectangular solder pad, this is the required ground (Gnd) connection for the Aux3 and Aux4 transistor connections. Bottom view of decoder that normally plugs into the 21 MTC adapter PCB You will also notice that I have connected a brown wire (Aux3) by plugging in an off cut square LED lead, bending the top over and soldering the brown wire to it. The Aux3 pin number 13 is shown by the brown dots. Top View of decoder 2

3 Aux3 an External PCB Because of the limited space the 21 MTC adapter PCB couldn t be used but after some thought I decided to cut out the section containing the Aux3 and Aux4 components to be used as a separate PCB which I could fit into the spare space of the locomotive. It would be great if ESU could provide this type of auxiliary PCB. I managed to remove the required section and the rest of the 21 MTC adapter PCB was still good to be used in another conversion where only Aux1 and Aux2 would be used. The blue resist was carefully scratched off to allow me to tin the area to provide solder pads for the wires. The ground (Gnd) black wire from the decoder is connected to the Aux functions PCB, soldered at the black arrow location. The Aux3 brown wire from the decoder is connected to the Aux functions PCB, soldered at the brown arrow location. The Aux3 output grey wire from the Aux functions PCB is soldered to a 1k ohm resistor which then connects to the grey wire via a socket of the cabin light. 1k The other Aux4 function wasn t used. Left hand side view 3

4 Wiring the Locomotive In the photo above you can see that the solder pads on the locomotive are in the same order as the wires coming from the decoder. The wire lengths should be no longer than 25mm because there is very little space for them to fit without pinching the wires with the locomotive body shell. When I removed the original decoder I discovered it was a LokPilot V3.0 with mfx and there were two unused solder pads which I used for the violet (Aux2) and green (Aux1) wires as these pads aren t used on the locomotive PCB. To help get the Telex wires up from the coupling pockets I carefully removed the front and rear light assemblies by pulling out the yellow hand rails on the chassis and the light assemblies will then lift up from the mounting slots. The rear Telex on the left, grey wire is connected to Aux1 green solder pad and the front Telex on the right, grey wire is connected to Aux2 violet solder pad. The black wire of both Telex couplers are connected together and connected to the +pole blue wire and protected with a heat shrink sleeve, an extra blue wire is also used for the cabin light. The Aux functions PCB is connected to the decoder and the 1k resistor is shown without the cabin light being connected. I used this arrangement to programme the decoder and test all functions before trying to squeeze all the components into the small space of the body shell. 4

5 Final Component Arrangement Top View Rear Front The decoder is covered in heat shrink tube to act as an insulator which is cut and folded around the decoder without shrinking it. The decoder holding clips are then bent around the decoder and the wires for the cabin light are held with the top right hand clip. All the decoder wires have been folded as close to the decoder as possible. The motor is marked with a white dot to ensure correct orientation if removed and replaced. Right Side View Note how I have looped the wires from the front Telex coupler close to the motor, over the motor terminal to hold the wires clear of the pantograph connection pad (red arrow top view) Left Side View The resistor covered in heat shrink is mounted on the chassis (yellow arrow) then the Aux functions PCB covered in heat shrink tube is above the resistor and finally the two socket connectors for the cabin light. This tight arrangement must be below the top of the motor level for the cabin assembly to fit correctly. To fit the body shell, tilt the shell at the rear to get the light contacts past the decoder then lower at the front. 5

6 Lighting Front lights and cabin light Cabin Light shown from the right side. Rear lights The default F0 operation of the lights is bottom lights front and rear are on and the top light is direction dependant. 6

7 CV Values for the LokPilot V4 Warning: Make sure you read the ESU decoder instructions before programming any CV s Motor Settings [Index:0 (CV31=0, CV32=0)] CV# Name Range Value Default 1 Primary Address Start Voltage *3 3 3 Acceleration Deceleration Maximum Speed Medium Speed Analogue Mode F1-F8 (F0 Lights + F5 Cabin light) Load Control Parameter I slow speed * Load Control Parameter K slow speed Control Reference Voltage Load Control Parameter K Load Control Parameter I Forward Trim (1 x Voltage) Reverse Trim (1 x Voltage) Automatic Uncoupling Speed Automatic Uncoupling Move Time (2 sec.) Automatic Uncoupling Push Time (1 sec.) Timing Functions [Index:4096 (CV31=16, CV32=0)] 277 Aux1 [1] Turn Off After Timeout (3.28 sec.) Aux2 [1] Turn Off After Timeout (3.28 sec.) Aux3 Time Delay Turn On/Off (1.64 sec.) 68 0 Mapping Functions to Outputs [Index:4098 (CV31=16, CV32=2)] 362 F1f (forward) mapped to Aux1[1] * F1f (forward) Rear Light[2], Aux1[1] mapped together F1r (reverse) mapped to Aux2[1] F1r (reverse) Front Light[2], Aux2[1] mapped together F2f (forward) mapped to Aux2[1] (deleted) F2r (reverse) mapped to Aux2[1] (deleted) F5 Stop, Forward Condition on Aux F5f (forward) mapped to Aux F5 Stop, Reverse Condition on Aux F5r (reverse) mapped to Aux Function Control Settings [Index:4096 (CV31=16, CV32=0)] Function Mode Select Brightness 0-31 Special Function Output CV# Value CV# Value CV# Value Head Light[1] * Rear Light[1] * Aux1 Telex Aux2 Telex Aux3 Cabin Light Head Light[2] Flash Rear Light[2] Flash Please note any Value = *xx means the default value wasn t changed. The Index settings CV31 and CV32 must be changed when doing direct CV programming. 7

8 CV Values for the LokPilot V4 continued CV13 has been changed so F1 Telex function won t turn on but F0 lights and F5 cabin light will operate when running in Analogue Mode. For people that don t have the LokProgrammer or the ECoS and have to rely on direct CV programming you may find my article Using LokProgrammer to Find Undocumented CV s really useful. Please note some CV values may change in time once I have tried running the locomotive in a schedule with TrainController to test the Uncoupling function. Any changes will be updated once testing is complete. Bonus Time I have supplied my latest LokProgrammer project file 36331_proj (113Kb) for people to use as a starting point for a locomotive conversion similar to this. It can only be used with LokProgrammer and above. Speed profile for TrainController with the maximum speed set at 60km/h Left is the speed profile showing all decoder speed settings. The electric locomotive is a good choice for adding the Telex uncouplers as the coupling pocket is well supported so the uncoupler won t sag maintaining a good height for the modern close couplers. Update Rudolf advised that one of the Telex couplers was drooping enough to hit the centre rail stud when the engine went over any point or double slip. On close examination I found both Telex couplers were loose in the coupler pockets. I used some 0.25mm thick plastic to lift the coupler to the top of the coupler pocket and the Telex coupler now misses the centre studs. 8

9 Locomotive Control Above is the ECoS command station window showing F0 lights on, F1 telex function off, F3 slow mode off, F4 Inertia on and F5 cabin light on. To the right is the TrainController Train window. 9

10 Small Problem with F1 Automatic Uncoupling Using the F1 automatic uncoupling function on the ECoS controller works well for the first time but if you forget to turn it off once the locomotive has done its uncoupling shuffle, then reverse the locomotive the uncoupling function will start in the opposite direction which you may not have intended. There isn t an option to have a time delay before turning off the function button. Small Problem with F1 Automatic Uncoupling Solved Using a Train window in TrainController I have solved this problem by having a list associated with the locomotive functions that ensures the train has stopped, performs the uncoupling function then turns the F1 function off. In the Engine functions window you will notice the first Coupler Uncouple Auto Timer associated with F1 is Hidden and the second Coupler Uncouple Automatic I have defined the actions in a List... On/Off Switch. It is important that the graphics for the coupler symbols are different when triggering the actions from a schedule. The List of Operations Stop the locomotive, delay 2 seconds, Play Sound file train uncoupling then the hidden F1 Uncouple Auto Timer is turned On, then after a delay of 4 seconds the Uncouple Auto Timer is turned Off. This works well and is much safer than operating the locomotive with the ECoS. 10

11 Parts required:- Part Number Supplier Description Quantity ESU ESU LokPilot V4.0 Decoder ESU 21 MTC Adaptor ESU White cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Black cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Red cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Orange cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Green cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Grey cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Yellow cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Brown cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m ESU Blue cable, 0.5mm diameter, AWG36, 10m 1 E Märklin Telex Coupler (pkt of 2) Element14 1K MF25 Resistor 0.25W, 1% Element14 Harwin SIL Socket 32Way D PLCC2LW3CT Ledz.com PLCC2 warm white LED 1 As always enjoy your model trains. 11