I have recently finished a battery R/C conversion + Sierra sound on the new AC E8. This a very nice loco that is very easy to work on. Getting it apart is much simpler than getting USAT locos apart. Seven screws all clearly marked with arrows. The body seems to be voluminous but in reality it isn’t. The steel backbone chassis takes up about 1" of vertical space. Various components hanging down from the top of the roof also take up space. I thought of using the fuel tank to hold the batteries like I did with the SD-45 that also belongs to the owner of this E8. I could not figure out how to remove the fuel tank without damaging the various glued on tank detail parts that very neatly cover the four screws. Fortunately my customer didn’t want smoke units so I didn’t have to explore removing the fuel tank. I could fit the batteries on the chassis rail. Whilst in theory I could simply throw the track - battery switch on the loco to isolate it from the track, I have discovered over the years that AC often get the switch wiring wrong. So, not wanting to take the risk I firstly I removed each truck to get at the truck wiring in order to cut away the track pick up wires. The pix are generally self explanatory. My apologies for the focus on the first two pix. I forgot to turn on the Macro feature on my new Cannon camera.
The 2 x 8.4 volt 7 cell 2,400 mah Sub C NiCd battery packs are glued to the chassis rail with silicone roof and gutter sealant. To date I have never had that sealant let go. Even during shipping. This gives adequate running time but can easily be extended by plugging in auxiliary batteries carried in a trail car. See last pic below. Some of the installation components are attached to the sides of the battery packs.
The RCS # RF-CHK pcb’s are mounted on styrene sheet attached to the chassis rail with silicone. One at each end. They go inbetween the # BASIC-6 and the motors and provide excellent motor noise suppression to maximise the range. I mounted the RCS BASIC-6 just behind the battery packs.
The # RELAY pcb is wired into the old AC loom. I removed the original AC battery leads from both ends and fed the traction battery voltage through the # RELAY to where the AC battery leads connected to the AC loom. The # RELAY provides a fused constant voltage for the AC electronics. Polarity is reversed by using the rear light function on the BASIC-6 to control the relay coil. This saves a whole lot of time compared to rewiring all the lights.
I always use my own battery installation kits to save time when installing equipment. They make life much easier than soldering wires to switches as they are wired in with screw terminals. Here the # BIK-U6 is mounted on the rear of the body shell with the charge jack. The charge jack also doubles as a port for auxiliary batteries as described above.
Not shown is the RCS receiver and AZARR 27 Mhz Lite antenna mounted up in the roof. Although I have not range tested the loco yet I have achieved well over 200’ with simliar installations. The E8 will sometimes be run Mu’ed with the SD-45. I will report back when more testing has been done.