With the release of the new style AZL thought I would post something to let new People be fore-warned. When installing, the 2 front pads with the solder on them need to be filed/melted down to fit in the clips of the frame Don't try and bend the frame it will crack and break, trust me. if you do a search of this forum you find a couple of ways to do this the best I found was using a solder sucker (thanks Jeff worked awesome) left just enough to fit snugly.
Dave you are right on. When I installed them in the AZL locos that, I have use a file to make sure the solder on the end is at a slight bevel. You have to watch though. I have noticed a few boards that the solder is very thin. I tend to put a drop of Conductalube on the tab to assist in good conductivity. Additionally, check the back of the boards. I find that some have a small piece of plastic left on them from possibly being removed from a larger sheet of material. The back of the board needs to be flush. The protrusion can prevent the boards from dropping down into the slots as it catches on the two tabs on the chassis that are suppose to lock the board in place. A few swipes of the file remove this piece. Rob
I use a hobby knife and shave the solder off. Just be careful with how much solder you take off. Check the fit after each shave. By the way, that's the Ed Turner method.
Digitrax DZ123Z0: New SD70 / DCC. A picture is worth a thousand words; let's see it with working lights on your guys' programming track & close-ups of the board please. Thanks in advance...
OK the pads, in the picture they are on the left and right side of the board at the bottom. If you are going to file or shave be careful of the little black "resistor I think" right above the left pad. also note the rough edge of the circuit board at the bottom. it is ok on this end of the board but needs to be filed/sanded down on the other end. I used a solder sucker to remove some of the solder. Soldering missing from picture needed that hand for the camera. The one I used is spring loaded made it hard to keep steady when you release the spring would recommend the bulb type. After that I did a quick test fit you want the board to be snug in the slots on the right in this picture. My first attempt left it a little loose so I reheated the solder on the pad and using the iron pushed the solder toward the end of the board made it just a little thicker.
Digitrax DZ123Z0: New AZL SD70 / DCC / TCS Z2. I thought we were referring to how it fits in the new SD70 chassis; thanks again though for the visual references. I take it then that the Digitrax DZ123Z0 has always needed some extra work/modification, for both the old chassis models and the new SD70 chassis? I'm just curious because I still prefer TCS Z2 decoders in my SD70's over Digitrax; it's a little bit of a let down that AZL/Digitrax changed something internally in the new common PCB included with the new SD70 releases that effects the TCS Z2 decoder functions...when it never did before on the older SD70's board. Makes me wonder why.....
sorry they haven't released an new version SD that fits my roster. I will say it is the same as what I've posted. both boards GP9 and new SD70 are the same board. on the stock board it still has the 6 mount point for the Z2. And I agree with you I prefer the Z2 as well it is in all of my old school SD's. what they changed was the clips that used to connect the 6 pads. AZL had problems with the clips shifting and causing the engine not to run. Instead of clips they have very small copper tracers that connect the pads. all you need to do is cut trace with hobby knife and remove than solder the Z2 to the Pads. Robet from azl said he would release the wiring diagram soon on the AZL site. As of now I don't think any documentation is going out the Chinese translation failed badly I'll take a picture of the stock board so you can see what I mean
Its hard to see( sorry only have an Iphone) but on the top of the board can you see the very fine copper trace connecting the 3 pads on the left the right has the same set up. On the bottom you can see the numbers for the pad wiring
Dave, Not as easy as clipping the traces and installing the Z2. Been there, done that. The motor functions work, however the directional lights do not. I also tried bypassing the light traces of the board and wiring direct to the LED with no success.
Hi Ed, I see what you mean did a quick pin out on the board and found that the LEDs do not have a common wire. Don't see a quick way around it. 1- motor left side 2- motor right side 3- track left side and reverse led 4- track right side and forward led 5- reverse led 6- fwd led
If what yo give for the pins is correct then the track power is the common on both LEDs however the LEDs are not commonly connected to the track power in DC mode, one led has the anode connected to track power and the other the cathode, to get reversing headlights. I suspect in DCC, with a decoder, that the lighting would continue to work with no decoder connections were made to pins 5 and 6 and also not cutting the new traces that replace the brass clips on the new board to pins 5 and 6. The head light would then be directional and operate like those on constant lighting transformers. They just wold not be controllable from the decoder, and would be constant on, but not full bright. If you isolate the LEDs then you may also need to keep the ballast resistor in circuit with the LED. I will wait a bit longer to see if we get a Canadian version of SD70 other than CN and then explore this further.
with DCC the track doesn't change polarity so I would think only 1 led would work no matter what direction the engine is going. If you pick up the engine and face it in the other direction the other led should come on. I'm guessing not sure about the dcc output.
Not being sure where the other half of the power feed to the LED is coming from it is hard to be certain what the result will be on DCC, but you would have to be certain not to add headlight control from a decoder to 5 and 6 on the light board, as that would add more voltage to the LED than expected. IF the other side is also track power then on DCC both headlights should come on, with slightly reduced brightness, At 60 hertz AC the LED is lit 50% of the time and is actually Oscillating on off very quickly but the flicker would probably not be noticeable when running. The effect would be similar to Constant lighting feature on some controllers on DC.
