Hi All, Recently I came into possession of the 41928 Rheingold set and was excited to see that I could add a function decoder to switch the light functions on and off. The first problem is Märklin don t specify in the instructions which decoder will suit and also don t say what the switchable functions are. I decided to try the coach set as supplied and could see red rear lights for the baggage car and all the tables lamps light up in the other coaches. So my guess was that F1 and F2 would switch the table lamps and rear lights respectively. The major disappointment was the light levels for the table lamps varied between coaches and were difficult to see with the room lights on. I decided to add Märklin 73400 lighting kits with the yellow LEDs to improve the overall light level. I plugged in the light unit x2 and wired it to the socket provided in the coach, now I could see the coach lights with the room lights on. I had a spare LokPilot Fx v4.0 decoder from ESU so I removed the bridging PCB in the baggage car and plugged in the decoder. I used the default address (3) and tried out each of the function keys F1... F4. This may sound like a broken record but I was disappointed again because F1 turned on the table lamps and coach lights together and F2 switched the rear red lights on. F3 and F4 didn t switch anything. It was time to investigate if I could separate the table lamps and coach lights into two different switchable circuits and to also find another option to use F3, hence this article. Above you can see the coach lights and table lamps on as the finished result. I used grey card on the other side of the coach windows to enhance the table lamps for photos only. On my tips page you will see the animated photos of the switchable functions. Default Wiring By default each coach in the set has a ground spring for collecting the power from the wheels and uses a current conducting coupler (single pole) which gets its power from the baggage car that is switched by the function decoder F1. Wiring Requirements for Separate Switchable Functions I would use double pole current conducting couplers for two switchable functions as long as I could modify the lighting circuits on the PCBs into two separate circuits for the baggage car and the rest of the coaches. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 1
Warning: - You undertake the following modifications at your own risk. Baggage Car Wiring Requirements F3 F4 The modifications to the baggage car proved to be very easy. First I removed the original current conducting couplers and contact springs as they aren t required. The view above shows where I cut the PCB track at the red arrow. The yellow track is the table lamps circuit F1 and the grey track is for the coach lights circuit F4 which are connected to the current conducting coupler on the left. (See yellow and grey dots) The red track is the collector shoe connection and the brown track is the ground connection. I decided that the F3 function would switch the cupola light and the F4 function would switch all the coach lights. The cables shown are for these functions with the grey wires soldered to a solder pad on the blue track (+Pole) and the black wires soldered direct to the decoder mounting pins F3 = pin13 and F4 = pin4. At the other end of the cable I made sockets from rolled IC connectors protected with heat shrink. The three grey arrows show the positions of 4mm lengths of heat shrink tube 1.5mm dia. held in place with hot melt glue next to the coach weight to guide the grey wire for the table lamp circuit back to the current conducting coupler. The extra relay TN2-12V (DPCO) for the F4 function coach lights is hot melt glued to the top of the existing relay F1 function table lamps. See next page for close up details. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 2
Baggage Car Wiring Requirements continued 1 2 3 4 13 4 Relay Connections Pins 1 and 10 of the TN2 relay are to power the coil. Pin 3 is the changeover common contact where I soldered a wire to the red track solder pad. Pin 4 is soldered to the grey track after the cut track location shown by the red arrow. Rear Light Socket The orange rectangle shows the location where I removed the wires for the rear lights and soldered two pins of a rolled IC socket. The pins were bent at 90 deg. before soldering to the existing pads. This made removal of the body shell easier with a plug added to the rear light wires. Decoder Function Pins and +Pole Pin 4 is for F4 and Pin 13 is for F3. The black wires for these functions are soldered direct to the header pins as shown. The grey wires for these functions are soldered together on the solder pad shown by the blue arrow. Light Socket Connections The brown arrow is the ground connection from the wheels and the grey arrow shows the wire from the current conducting coupler for the coach lights. Rear Light Plug The yellow wire is shown connected to the pin with a white dot and plugs onto the socket connected to the +Pole on the blue track. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 3
Baggage Car Wiring Requirements continued Now it s time to fit the interior details making sure you thread the wires through the hole where the relay is to ensure no wires are pinched. You will notice I have included a small filter Vero PCB with a bridge rectifier and a small electrolytic capacitor. See details below. The red rectangle at the right is showing the location of a small rectangle of clear plastic glued to the interior details to provide support for the 73400 LED light kit. Wiring Diagram Baggage Car Coach Lights +Plus F4 LED Kit 10uF 25V 1 4 ~ ~ 2 Pole Coupling 10 3 LED Kit The yellow arrow shows a small length of heat shrink tube to prevent the wires from the conducting coupler from touching the wheels. At every conducting coupler I use this method to hold the wires together. Märklin 2 Pole Electrical Couplings The Male Connector is E219446 The Female Connector is E219447 Each connector comes wired with 10cm length of wire and a 2 pin connector at the other end (see red circle). Wiring Diagram Cupola LED Lighting (typical) +Plus F3 1k http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 4
73400 Led Light Requirements The baggage car will only allow 1.5 lengths of the 73400 lighting unit so carefully cut one light unit in half. There are only two support positions to be able to mount the LED strips so once you have found the correct position for the mounts glue in place with hot melt glue. On the left hand side I glued a small clear plastic strip to support the PLCC warm white LED and a 1k (1206) resistor which is soldered direct to the cathode side of the LED. This is the cupola light. Solder wires as shown for the cupola light and the LED strip. Plug in the remaining wires and carefully fit the body shell making sure you don t damage any wires. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 5
Baggage Car Lighting Results Coach lights only Coach lights with cupola light. Coach lights only. Coach lights with cupola light. Rear lights off. Rear lights on. See my Tips page for animated lights. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 6
Rheingold Coach Requirements The PCB in all the other coaches are similar and only require one track to be cut (red arrow) to allow two separate circuits. To remove a small 1mm piece of track use a sharp knife and make two cuts then use a soldering iron and apply heat on the required track and it will come away very easy. Once again remove the original current conducting couplers and contact springs as they aren t required. The coloured tracks above show the coach lights (grey), ground (brown) and table lamps (yellow). Please note the table lamp circuit (yellow track) is joined from each coupler at the yellow arrow. Make sure the wires from the conducting couplers are on the same side of the male and female coupler as shown by the grey and yellow dots. The three blue arrows show the positions of 4mm lengths of heat shrink tube 1.5mm dia. held in place with hot melt glue next to the coach weight to guide the black wire for the table lamp circuit back to the current conducting coupler. Use hot melt glue to secure the LED lighting strips to the mounts provided with each light kit. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 7
Rheingold Coach Requirements continued Solder wires to the LED lighting strip and plugs to the other end and plug into the socket provide as shown above. Ensure the wheels are clean and the contact spring is positioned as shown for each coach. If the lights start to flicker in a coach it may be time to inspect the wheels and contact spring. TrainController Train Window With trains and cars I have started to define a Functions Off icon which has a list command to turn off all functions as shown above. This is a quick way to turn all functions off with only one mouse click that I m using more often. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 8
Coach Car Lighting Results Table lamps on Table lamps and coach lights on Note: With the room lights off the table lamps can be seen quite well but with the room lights on the coach lights are required to see lighting in the train. Opinion Time Märklin should have designed the lighting options to enable the table lamps and coach lights on separate circuits to make use of the decoder functions. Decoder Requirements I almost forgot to mention that I programmed the decoder to have CV1 = 112. All other options were default except for the brightness of the cupola light which I turned down to a low value. As always enjoy your model trains. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rossstew/rms/marklin.html 9