Here is some photos of my progress in my latest endeavor, I’ve had this Shay since 1999 she’s a second generation model and I recently purchased a set of the Bachmann all metal replacement trucks so I thought I would spruce he up a bit while I was at it. Being an older unit it came with steam brakes and the rear light mounted on the roof so the shop foreman said lets up date the old lady. He added a complete air brake system with tank and compressor, all new Nathan injectors, steam turret, brake valve, regulator, Sibert oiler, whistle in a new location as is the bell, new cab light, pop valves, gauges, all the piping, and an operating reversing lever, opened the back of the cab up and Serra sound in the tender section, modified USA Trains smoke unit and custom electronics in the boiler and ash pan area ready for DCC, which I’m still debating what brand. I still have a bit of cleaning up patching some holes, a bit of sanding then disassembly for paint.
Sweet!
Cool. Need to get new trucks for mine and then add some details like this.
Wow, great mods Joe! 
Very nicely done!.
Are you going to do a re-paint?
Rick
Rick Marty said:
Very nicely done!.
Are you going to do a re-paint?
Rick
Joe Augustine said: I still have a bit of cleaning up patching some holes, a bit of sanding then disassembly for paint. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Great additions. I like the way you have added to details as well as added a few(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Very nice. Tell us about the custom electronics. What’s cookin’ ?
as far as the electronics I removed all the Bachmann boards, replaced the flickering fire box circuit with 3 flickering LEDs very simple just add a current limiting resistor and a $1 adjustable DC to DC converter board I bought on eBay I’m using a modified USA Trains fan driven smoke unit which I added fiberglass batting to. Running on track voltage for now I’ve had a problem with the smoke unit heating element not producing enough smoke at the lower voltages needed to run the loco at a realistic speed so I found on eBay an adjustable dc to dc voltage booster board for $1.50 which I connected the input to the rails through a bridge rectifier and the output to the heating element of the smoke unit now when the rail voltage is between 3 to 6 volts the voltage to the heating element is 18 volts, the fan was connected to rail voltage directly so fan speed varies with motor voltage. All the LEDs for lights are connected to additional adjustable DC to DC converters there is also a custom connector board mounted in the ash pan section where All connections are made to motors lights and rail with jumpers that can be removed to add DCC in the future
18 volts to the heating element seems awfully high… is this applied to the heating element directly, or to the USAT regulator board? I see the regulator board in the pictures.
I got lots of smoke at a much lower heater voltage.
Greg
Greg, Not using the USA Trains regulator board, the fan is connected to a separate DC/DC converted set at 9 volts the heating element is connected to a DC/DC boost board rated at 9 amps and set to a constant 18 volt output which is achieved as soon as the input reaches 3.5 volts which on my DC xfmr is below the starting voltage for the motor, this is all somewhat temporary until I finally switch all over to DCC, I agree the voltage is high but that’s where I get enough smoke output but I come to think of it I did not remeasure the voltage when the load is applied which I will do and let you know
I’m pretty sure you will destroy that heating element at 18 volts…
12 volts gave me a ton of smoke and really was higher than you can use continuously.
9 volts is what can run all day.
This is 12 volts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZqLWPsJJ70
Greg