Loksound in a KATO Mikado?

[woodone]

No wire? How do you control on-off?
There are those who think that by using the right or left rail for powering the LED is bad practice.
I have been doing this for about 20 years with out problems.
No extra parts to fuss with IMO.  To each his own, there are more than one way to make something work

[peteski]

That is what I've been doing, adding a small half-bridge rectifier component.  All in the loco, so no wire

Sure, but woodone was recommending hooking up the positive side of the LED directly to one of the rails.  While that works, it is not  optimal.

[peteski]

No wire? How do you control on-off?
There are those who think that by using the right or left rail for powering the LED is bad practice.
I have been doing this for about 20 years with out problems.
No extra parts to fuss with IMO.  To each his own, there are more than one way to make something work

It works, but the LED is actually flashing really fast, since the DCC voltage flips polarity many times a second, so the LED will only be lit when the rail LED is hooked up to is at a positive potential (which is roughly 50% of the time).  Also, if you hook each headlight to the wrong rail, they will not work when running on DC.

If you were using 12V incandescent bulbs, you could easily observe the difference in the light brightness.  When using one of the rails as positive, the bulb will look dimmer than if it was powered with the positive side hooked up to the blue decoder wire, or to the dual-diode circuit.  With LEDs, this is not as apparent (as the white LEDs are very efficient and also have very fast turn-on time).

Some decoder hookup diagrams show that hookup method, but I still don't like it. Plus I had some problems with the headlight not fully turning off, even when the function was turned off.  It might have been an issue with the decoder (Digitrax), but once I added the dual-diode circuit, the headlight worked properly.

[RBrodzinsky]

No wire? How do you control on-off?
There are those who think that by using the right or left rail for powering the LED is bad practice.
I have been doing this for about 20 years with out problems.
No extra parts to fuss with IMO.  To each his own, there are more than one way to make something work

No blue wire (positive common). The white wire still runs to the loco

[woodone]

Got it !

[Bill H]

...I didn't run chassis pickup wires to the tender (e.g., I used the drawbar to transfer electrical pickup from the engine to the tender).  So I used a 4-wire harness (two for the headlight, two for the motor) back to the tender (the harness was the TCS 4-wire with micro plug)...
John C.

Hi John:
Is there a reason why you did not use the TCS 6-wire with micro plug and thus not count on the drawbar for electrical connectivity from the engine back to the tender. That might be a relevant issue when changing out the tender to a non KATO tender.

Kind regards,
Bill

[jdcolombo]

Hi John:
Is there a reason why you did not use the TCS 6-wire with micro plug and thus not count on the drawbar for electrical connectivity from the engine back to the tender. That might be a relevant issue when changing out the tender to a non KATO tender.

Kind regards,
Bill

Appearance and complication.  Getting six wires to run from the boiler to the tender and look decent is not a trivial job.  If you really want it to look right, the wires need to come out of the bottom of the frame area at the back.  To do that, you need to mill a channel in each side of the frame, then route the wires in the channel and out the back of the engine, parallel to the drawbar, and into the tender shell.  Getting six wires to lay "just right" for this is doable, but not fun.  Four is much more manageable.   I've used six wires when I thought it was necessary (well, five - for my Key brass Berkshire), but in this case I decided that the drawbar provided a good enough electrical link that I could skip the two additional wires.  If I were using a different tender, or thought I would down the road, I'd use the six-wire harness.

John C.

[Bill H]

John:
Thanks. I had assumed as much, but wanted to hear it from the Oracle of Delphi Loksound first . I have to change out the tenders on my KATO Mikados to Bachmann long vanderbilts to match the B&O practice. I had some comfort with the KATO drawbar electrical transfer to the KATO tender, but not so much finding a solution to transfer via a customized drawbar to the vanderbilts. On the other hand, dealing with six wires was also not high on my list.

Unfortunately, I will also be changing tenders to vanderbilts on my Bachmann mountains as well and I am less comfortable with the relative consistency of electrical transfer on the Bachmann drawbars. I guess it will be six wires or nothing...

Kind regards,
Bill

[Bill H]

Appearance and complication.  Getting six wires to run from the boiler to the tender and look decent is not a trivial job.  If you really want it to look right, the wires need to come out of the bottom of the frame area at the back.  To do that, you need to mill a channel in each side of the frame, then route the wires in the channel and out the back of the engine, parallel to the drawbar, and into the tender shell.  Getting six wires to lay "just right" for this is doable, but not fun.  Four is much more manageable.   I've used six wires when I thought it was necessary (well, five - for my Key brass Berkshire), but in this case I decided that the drawbar provided a good enough electrical link that I could skip the two additional wires.  If I were using a different tender, or thought I would down the road, I'd use the six-wire harness.

John C.

John:
I can empathize with the bundle of wires conundrum, as an example, keeping the bundle of EM-1 wires not causing a problem can be tough. Same with the old LifeLike/Walthers 0-8-0. Any suggestions that have worked for you?

Kind regards,
Bill

[jdcolombo]

I've done two things.  First, I've been know to wrap a small piece of .008 brass wire around the "bundle" to keep the wires from separating and going their own way.  A couple of loops with the brass, then paint black, and no one will notice.

I've also been known to use a dab of CA cement to cement the wires together.  I abandoned this practice, though, because once the wires are CA'd, you can't ever get them apart without ruining the insulation.  Using a brass wire "wrap" allow you to unwrap if need be.

John C.

[Lemosteam]

I've done two things.  First, I've been know to wrap a small piece of .008 brass wire around the "bundle" to keep the wires from separating and going their own way.  A couple of loops with the brass, then paint black, and no one will notice.

I've also been known to use a dab of CA cement to cement the wires together.  I abandoned this practice, though, because once the wires are CA'd, you can't ever get them apart without ruining the insulation.  Using a brass wire "wrap" allow you to unwrap if need be.

John C.

Same could be done with black thread to eliminate the paint.

[MK]

I think the paint is not just for the brass wire but rather for the entire bundle.  So with black thread you still need to pant the wires.

[peteski]

In some of my steam multi-wire umbilical cords I use the wires to imitate the various hoses in 1:1 locos between the tender and the loco.  I think I got the idea from the FVM Hiawatha Atlantic.    If I have 4 wires, I run 2 on each side, forming them into a "U" shape to look like hoses.

[woodone]

I have used NWSL super flex wire in the past. Know use LocSound wire. I have always used black wire so it is hard to see. I use 5 wires between the loco and tender. I route the wires to lay on the top side of the drawbar so they hare hidden. The LokSound wire is a bit stiffer but it has not caused any problems to date. Very small wire.

[Bill H]

Group:
Thanks for the input on wiring between the loco and tender. I remember back when LL released that very nice 0-8-0, there were a number of persons, myself included, who had issues with the wiring sometimes lifting either the back of the loco or the tender.

John, and others, in your thoughts on "bundling" the wires with copper or thread, are you not concerned that the bundle, which logically would be stiffer than individual wires, is going to cause some sort of issue?

Kind regards,
Bill