Does anyone have pictures of the extra set of power feeds to the tender wheels? Mark's N-scale encyclopedia mentions it helps enhance electrical pickup. I read the K4 Overhaul article by Max Magliaro, but I do not have any spare tenders so I need to work with the one I have.
There are no power "feeds" on the Minitrix American 0-6-0 as it collects its power from the drivers only. I am probably one of the biggest advocates of steamers using tenders to pick up power and deliver it to the motor in the cab there is out there, but on certain locomotives, never saw it necessary. I have seven of these which I use as branch locos, and find that no power wires to the loco from the tender to be an attribute. Never had a problem with that loco faltering on any layout I had since the 80's when I bought my first one. It has a lot of weight from the metal boiler to ensure proper adhesion and contact with the track, at least in my book. Plus, they clean up so easily. I bought a dirty, dusty, ugly one w/o a tender for $5 at a swap meet, originally intending it for parts for my others. I took it apart, cleaned it, lubricated it, and nursed the stiffened up motor back to service, then put on a spare Rivarossi 0-8-0 tender w/0 the pickups, and it is now one of my favorite small steamers. But if you want to get to the motor leads, you will have to take it apart, and solder some wires directly from the motor, create tender pickup (very do-able) and run the wires to the tender. But you lose the flexibility to change out tenders. Again, a great loco as it stands, IMHO Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
IIRC, their wasn't any option for tender pickups with these locos, and the main power comes though the metal frame, and wheel whipers on the other side attached to a circut board. it is a pretty solid pickup, although it can stall acrost plastic frogs at slow speeds. The one I have has been a mainstay in my roster for a long time, and it even has a Decoder now. add tender pickup and it is a 100% awesome switcher and is rock solid. I added tender pickups to mine by addind an old pair of Walthers 0-8-0 tender trucks I had left over from another project, Given I bought my locomotive used, and the tender was hacked up to begin with, it wasn't that big of a deal to me to hack it more. I wired the tender to the locomotive by soldering strait to the pickup board on the one side, and sandwitching the other wire between the fram and the motor at the back of the motor, then I ran the wires out though the bottom of the locomotive under the motor, though the the existing hole, then acrost the bottom of the drawbar, leaving the wires slack, then back up though the floor of the tender, and soldering the wires to the trucks on the tender. This is a lot of work, I know, that is why I would sugest actually getting one of the bachmann slopeback tenders with the full tender pickup and go with that. as for the wiring, I would do one of two things, I would contact walthers or bachmann and see about getting a female plug from them (walthers uses this plug on the 0-8-0, Bachmann on the 4-6-0, New run of the 2-6-6-2, and I think the new run of the 2-8-0) and wire into that, or solder directly to the plug in the tender. I would go ahead and Isolate the motor by unsoldering the top wire from the motor, and add a section of wire, and remove the spring from the bottom connection, and solder a wire there also, then remove the top wire from the board and solder a longer wire in it's place, then use the same method as I mentioned before, then as before, run the wires under the motor, though the hole, then the diffrence here is to split the wires, 2 to the left, and 2 to the right of the drawbar, and solder the wires to the plug matching up the wires with the proper spots on the tender plug. connect the 2, and you are good to go! It sounds pretty overwhelming, but it really isn't that hard. and loosing the chance of it stalling at low speeds is well worth it in my opinion. :tb-biggrin:
Thanks for the replies. Guess my question should be: Does anyone have pictures of how to add the extra set of power feeds to the tender wheels? I found this picture in Max's article. I have some phosphor bronze to make the pickups but I need photos with a little more detail. Again, I do not have any spare tenders. And I don't have any spare tender trucks. I need to work with the one I have. After playing with it for a few days, it seems to be a good little engine. I do plan to isolate the motor and add an LED headlight. Please elaborate on how you "nursed the stiffened up motor back to service".
Shawn, Max did about what I did, except I lifted the pickups over the axles. I believe that tender has pickup-style axles, even if it doesn't have pickup. That is, for each axle one wheel is live, while the other is insulated. If that is not the case, then it is pretty easy these days to find axles that are arranged that way. I may have stolen them off Bachmann lighted "Shorty" passenger cars many years ago. I did not find it hard to run wires from the tender to the engine pickups. I used old Atlas switch machine wiring, which is very thin and flexible. The metal bolts that mounted the trucks provided a nice soldering point. Using Max's pickups, or mine above the axle, soldering a wire to the end of the bolt or the nut was easy. I just cut my pickups out of a sheet of brass (or phosphor-bronze) with an eXacto knife. I did fill the tender with weights to make sure my pickups did not cause a picking problem. Tender pickup improves these engine's performance, at least over the switches of the 1980s. Mine has been packed away for almost a decade, since I switched to Atlas C55. It probably runs fine over modern C80 switches. In all, a nice engine that, when well tuned, ran quite well at low speeds.
Progress so far: Cut up and shaped some phosphor bronze, soldered wires, and modified the tender. Not too sure about the plugs; doesn't look like they will fit in the space under the frame (just below the motor). And ... please elaborate on how you "nursed the stiffened up motor back to service". Shawn and Sally Harrison - Modeling 1850s B&O
Hi all, Max here. I rarely post in here, but stumbled on it... I did not use axle wipers at all in my 0-6-0 pickup mod. I don't like them. In fact, I go out of my way to get rid of anything with axle wipers and convert them to the Kato-style pickups that have bronze strips outside the wheels and pickup from the cone-pointed axle ends. I don't have any good photos of how I did the 0-6-0, but it's the same as how I did the K4, so here some pictures. The idea is the same. You need some Kato tender trucks or Bachmann Spectrum tender trucks (or Kato caboose trucks). First, you solder some very flexible stranded wire to the tabs on the trucks. You need to be QUICK so you don't melt and destroy the trucks. Make sure you sand the contact areas clean before trying this so the solder bonds FAST. I use the superflex wire from NGineering.com Next, you have to cut slots in the tender floor so the tabs can protrude up inside it with the wires: Then you feed the wires up inside the tender, over to the motor, and solder them on. On the 0-6-0, the idea is the same. You just have to adapt. Route the wires however you have to. And you'll need to drill some tiny holes in the front or bottom to get the wires out of the tender, over to the motor. Believe me, this makes a humongous difference to how smoothly this engine runs. No more stalls! Even over turnouts.
Thank-you, Max for the advice! I don't have spare caboose/tender trucks right now; I will be looking, though. For now I am using wipers. I did pretty much what you said, including holes in the tender and fine wire from Ngineering. I did not want to hard-wire the tender to the motor, but it looks like I may have to. And I cannot remember how the headlight (slot) attaches to the body (tab). Was it glued or did it snap on somehow? And ... please elaborate on how you "nursed the stiffened up motor back to service". Shawn and Sally Harrison - Modeling 1850s B&O
One (hopefully) related question. How do you remove the body from the engine to get at the motor? I'm sorry if I missed this in an earlier thread. Thanks, Skip
One screw in the steam dome. Body just slips off then. The tender drawbar post on the engine has pickup to one side of the motor so I have a axle wiper that connects to a stiff wire around the mounting screw for the truck and mounted to the drawbar from the tender that contacts the post. At that point all you have to do is to adapt an axle wiper to the rear truck and make sure the pick-up wheels are on the opposite side from the front truck. Thin flexible wire then connects the mounting screw for the rear truck inside the tender and the wire is run to the opposite side of the loco motor. Not an eight wheel pick-up but it is an improvement. And unless you don't have one a parts schematic for the loco. http://www.vdweerdt.nl/manuals/minitrix/51201800.html
Still working on it -- got sidetracked (pardon the pun) by other projects. Trying to avoid hard-wiring the tender to the locomotive. The mini-plugs didn't work. And I lost the tender shell somewhere on my workbench.
