fleischmann decoders

[simsuper80]

I have this class 101 locomotive with dcc, and I want to put LEDs into this 3d printed shell that I have. But I am not exactly sure how to go about this. Hopefully someone familiar with this decoder type can give me some pointers?

[peteski]

I have couple of Fleischmann N scale steam locos with factory installed decoders.  Those are actually ZIMO decoders.

Yours looks Ike H0 scale model with a standard decoder interface.  What exactly do you mean by "putting LEDs into the shell".  Are you taking existing LEDs which were included on the model, and moving them to the new shell, or installing additoonal LEDs beyond what was included in the model?

[simsuper80]

I have couple of Fleischmann N scale steam locos with factory installed decoders.  Those are actually ZIMO decoders.

Yours looks Ike H0 scale model with a standard decoder interface.  What exactly do you mean by "putting LEDs into the shell".  Are you taking existing LEDs which were included on the model, and moving them to the new shell, or installing additoonal LEDs beyond what was included in the model?

I was wanting to wire additional LEDs to the decoder, which would then be attached to the new shell. the reason being that the existing ones are mounted on a board.

This is n scale by the way

[peteski]

So it is N scale.  I'm not familiar with the 14 pin decoder interface (I never owned one of those decoders).  Just to clarify, the decoder seems to  be the piggyback board on top of a larger adapter board. What is confusing is that the large adapter board seems to have some electronics (chips) on it.  Is this a sound-equipped install, or just a motor and lights decoder?



The photo you posted is not the clearest (and the decoder board is rather "busy" at the ends), so until you pointed it out, I didn't see those tiny LEDs.

There are lots of wires, and they do not appear to follow standard NMRA color codes. Where do the 5 wires at each end go?

[simsuper80]

So it is N scale.  I'm not familiar with the 14 pin decoder interface (I never owned one of those decoders).  Just to clarify, the decoder seems to  be the piggyback board on top of a larger adapter board. What is confusing is that the large adapter board seems to have some electronics (chips) on it.  Is this a sound-equipped install, or just a motor and lights decoder?



The photo you posted is not the clearest (and the decoder board is rather "busy" at the ends), so until you pointed it our, I didn't see those tiny LEDs.

There are lots of wires, and they do not appear to follow standard NMRA color codes. Where do the 5 wires at each end go?

This is a sound equipped model, and the 5 wires on each end might go to the 5 LEDs on each end (3 white and 2 red)

[TW877]

That model seems to be by Minitrix and not by Fleischmann. The strange 14-pin decoder interface is one of those silly Minitrix (=Marklin) inventions not made to any NEM standard - Look for MTC-14 if you are trying to find some details about it. Sound (if installed), and possibly some higher range funktion leads are not directly on the decoder, they are on the locos interface board and operated through the SUSI interface.
Decoders are made by Marklin/Minitrix with own firmware; they used to be a slimmed-down D&H (Doehler & Haass) decoder made under some kind of licence agreement. So replacing this decoder with another brand is next to impossible as no other manufacturer has made any with this interface. This also makes it hard to find good documentation about these decoders...

Chris

[peteski]

I guess regardless of the decoder manufacturer (and its funky design), we really need to know more details about what exactly you want to do.

Are you planning to move some of the existing LEDs  lights to your 3D shell?

Or all the currently installed LEDs?

Or do you want to mode all the existing LEDs and add even more?

Are you planning on unsolder the existing small surface-mount LEDs and then attachgin wires to them, or will you use other LEDs?

How good are you when it comes to precision soldering?

Please answer all the questions, since so far we don't  really have all that much to go on. 

I'm also curious as to which loco does the 3D printed shell depict.

Oh, usually the name of the manufacturer is molded somewhere on the model (like on the bottom of the fuel tank).

[simsuper80]

I guess regardless of the decoder manufacturer (and its funky design), we really need to know more details about what exactly you want to do.

Are you planning to move some of the existing LEDs  lights to your 3D shell?

Or all the currently installed LEDs?

Or do you want to mode all the existing LEDs and add even more?

Are you planning on unsolder the existing small surface-mount LEDs and then attachgin wires to them, or will you use other LEDs?

How good are you when it comes to precision soldering?

Please answer all the questions, since so far we don't  really have all that much to go on. 

I'm also curious as to which loco does the 3D printed shell depict.

Oh, usually the name of the manufacturer is molded somewhere on the model (like on the bottom of the fuel tank).

So I have a 3d printed shell of an alp-46. I want to use additional LEDs for this shell because the current LEDs are mounted on some kind of board, plus this way, the lights will be brighter. I might end up putting a function decoder just for these additional lights and either block out the original LEDs or take them off.

[Sokramiketes]

One option, if the lights on the decoder board generally do what you want, is to unsolder the surface mount LED's from the board, and wire in new LED's to the same pads.  That way you don't need to understand anything else about the proprietary board or circuitry. 

[peteski]

Mike describes a viable option (if you are up for this type of soldering operation).  Or replace them stock LEDs with new ones. You will still need to unsolder the existing light boards at the ends and solder your LEDs to those solder pads on the main circuit board.  I mentioned that in my last post.

When I asked if you if you wanted to add more LEDs, I meant to add them utilizing more of decoder's function outputs.  This would likely not be possible since we really don't have any info about the decoder and whether there would be any unused function outputs.

There is no need to keep the existing light boards on the ends (or even the 2 white LEDs soldered at the ends of the main board.  Removing those will make installing the new LEDs easier.

Could you take some clearer and better close-up photos of the ends of the main board and of the boards with LEDs.  If we get clear enough photos we should be able to tell where to connect the new  LEDs.  Please also upload the photos as In-line full size images (not the default End-of-post expandable thumbnail) because it is a pain to have to click on the thumbnail to see the full size image.

And did you try looking for the model's manufacturer name (maybe on the fuel tank)?

[peteski]

That model seems to be by Minitrix and not by Fleischmann. The strange 14-pin decoder interface is one of those silly Minitrix (=Marklin) inventions not made to any NEM standard - Look for MTC-14 if you are trying to find some details about it. Sound (if installed), and possibly some higher range funktion leads are not directly on the decoder, they are on the locos interface board and operated through the SUSI interface.
Decoders are made by Marklin/Minitrix with own firmware; they used to be a slimmed-down D&H (Doehler & Haass) decoder made under some kind of licence agreement. So replacing this decoder with another brand is next to impossible as no other manufacturer has made any with this interface. This also makes it hard to find good documentation about these decoders...

Chris

I got curious about this. It appears that both Fleischmann and Minitrix/Marklin made BR101 locos in N scale.




Part number for this one is 16081.

I actually own a Minitrix BR101, but from much earlier production run and it is a DC loco.  The internal design is totally different than what is shown here.

[kiwi_al]

So if this is a Fleischmann BR101 as per Petes post  and it is DCC / Sound then the decoder is a Zimo MX648 with an adapter board.

Here is a link to the Zimo PDF

http://www.zimo.at/web2010/documents/MX-KleineDecoder.pdf

So OP how's your German?   

EDIT:  You will want page 13 - diagram of decoder and outputs. BTW The manual has 77 pages.

[peteski]

I own ZIMO MX648 decoders and the one in the photo of simsuper80 loco doesn't look like a MX648.  So the loco is likely not a Fleischmann. As I mentioned, there is likely name of the manufacturer somewhere on the fuel tank, but that info as not been revealed so far.

EDIT: I keep mentioning checking a fuel tank for the name because I'm used to dealing with models of diesel locos.  Of course this is an electric loco, so there is no  duel tank.  What I mean is that the manufacturer's name will likely be on the plastic part between the trucks (bogies). Unless of course that part is missing from the model. 

Regardless, if this project is just to relocate the existing LEDs, if simsuper80 is capable of tracing the interconnecting wires and traces on the light boards, he should be able to hook up his  LEDs.  But if he wants to install additional LEDs connected to possibly unused function outputs (if there even are any), that gets much more complicated.

[keeper]

I found an operation manual on the Minitrix website. The frame drawing looks like the one form the OPs photo.
So it really seems to be a Minitrix loco.
Unfortunately the manual doesn't show the pc board, only some settings.

https://static.maerklin.de/damcontent/6d/ee/6dee1b01ac93ad0b860ba8a03f2d3d6d1489766154.pdf

Thomas

[simsuper80]

I found an operation manual on the Minitrix website. The frame drawing looks like the one form the OPs photo.
So it really seems to be a Minitrix loco.
Unfortunately the manual doesn't show the pc board, only some settings.

https://static.maerklin.de/damcontent/6d/ee/6dee1b01ac93ad0b860ba8a03f2d3d6d1489766154.pdf

Thomas

Just checked and it is in fact minitrix.

Here is what the LEDs look like