Has anyone devised a better electrical pickup system for the SW9/1200? It seems that attempting to remove the shell invariably destroys the pickups which are fastened to the walkways.
Yeah....that is a problem. I have several (3 Milw DC, 1 IC DC, 1 CNW DC, and 1 Milw DCC) and all of them have lost at least 1 wiper during disassembly. So far, I've been able to repair them all.......either by replacing the wiper and reheating with a soldering gun, or with glue....... I know of one friend who hardwired one of his by soldering wires to the trucks and then attaching to the frame. Not sure if he put screws into the chassis, soldered to the motor terminals, or attached to the light board. I do know he had to cut grooves in the chassis for the wires. I've never seen his with the shell off, and I've never really pursued the issue since mine are all up and running. I do know it made the trucks noticeably harder to pivot, but it seems to run fine.
On at least one of mine I've built quick-and-dirty new pickups out of thin brass. Friction between the frame and the shell holds them in place just fine. I do have to reinstall them every time I take off the shell, but they're a lot less likely to get mangled than the stock wipers. Once I start upgrading these to DCC I'm tempted to try hard-wiring the trucks.
I wondered about something similar........so the shell holds your homemade wipers in place OK? I thought about making some brass or copper Ts, then folding the top over. Then pushing the leg of the T up between the shell and chassis......the folded over top would then lay along the bottom of the walkway for the truck contacts to rub on. But I worried the friction fit wouldn't be enough to hold the strips. It's basically what you did, but I planned for the part sticking up to be much longer than yours are. I never got around to trying it, because as I said in the last post, I was able to fix all my original wipers, so the plan went on my "in case of repair failure" back burner. Why fix it if it ain't broke.
For a couple of my LL SW1200's, I made new contact strips out of I think phosphor strips that are similar in width and look to the typical contact strip on other common N scale locos. These contact strips have a gentle downward bend and span from the front truck contact to the rear truck contact, again like on common N scale locos. I soldered another section of phosphor strip to the middle of these contact strips in a T fashion. This section is then bent to extend up between the shell and the chassis, where it is then folded over the part of the frame wall that runs alongside the motor. Great care was taken to make sure this folded over (hook) part would not make contact with the motor, as that would most certainly cause a (decoder killing) short. This setup is a bit loose with the shell off but becomes quite steady with the shell on. It took a while to get everything together and bent just right, but this setup has worked flawlessly since (I did it a few years ago). YMMV. If there's interest, I can post some pics in the next few days.
I am converting several SW9's to DCC and I thought of doing this using the method that jwaldo used in his post above using shortened phosphor bronze strips. I wanted some information on what others had successfully done. Thanks to everyone who replied.
Maybe I'm showing my inexperience, but where do you buy that brass? Any specs you can share, such as thickness? I have a few of these and have wanted to craft custom wipers. Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk
The friction between the shell and frame holds them fairly tightly. They're easy to pull out, but I've never had one fall off on its own. As I recall, I used 0.005" brass sheet from the local hobby shop. Phosphor bronze might have been better, but the shop was out. I draw out the shapes on the sheet, cut them out with scissors, and file the edges smooth with a fine file. One sheet provides enough metal to make contacts for dozens, if not hundreds, of locomotives.
I would not recommend brass due to brass oxide being nonconductive. Rather use phosphor bronze which you can get from Clover House: Clover House
Thanks for the recommendations. I picked up some .008 bronze and replicated something I've seen before, but didn't know what thickness brass/copper/bronze to get. Here's my attempt. This unit hasn't lost any of the factory wipers yet, but all of mine could use more reliable pickup. Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk
v2" cut notches to clear body clips. I need the chassis to sit a hair lower, but getting close. Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk
