I love my 4 Bachmann 2-6-0 and two 4-4-0 Spectrum locomotives. However, I rarely run them because it’s so damn hard to connect/disconnect the wires from the locomotives to the tenders. Has anyone made modifications to make this easier?
I feel your pain. What I have done is build engine carriers for my locos so I don’t have to plug and unplug things every time I want to run them.
That’s a lot of horses in the stable not to run them. Maybe a small touch of graphite will help them pull apart easier?
It’s not so much the disconnecting. The leads are so short and it’s so tough to get them in the sockets. Pulling them out is also tough as I end up pulling on the wires which is not good!
Yes. I rotated the connector in the tender so it faces forward towards the locomotive. Now where are the photos. . .
First thing to know is that the connectors have little tabs that interlock, so the plug doesn’t come out - which is why they are such a pain to remove. First thing is to file or cut off the tabs on the tender board - see arrows. Note the hooks on the plug from the loco that I highlighted.
That might make it easy enough for you, but if not, you need a spare plug, the same as the one on the tender. They are some kind of JST plugs. [I’ll see if I can find the part number.] To make it fit, you need to cut off the front of the existing socket to expose the pins.
Under the front of the tender is the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with the plugs soldered in place so they point downwards. The spare/new plug is resting on it.
Here I have clamped the new plug where I want it, and soldered the pins on the new socket to the old one.
Then you cut away the tender front beam to clear the new plug:
You will note that the 2-pin Chuff trigger socket is now attached to a little piece of spare PCB and also soldered to the old board. Modify the chuff socket as you did for the 4-pin, by removing the little interlock pins.
And here’s how it looks in action. Some black acrylic paint makes it fade in to the background.
Incidentally, I didn’t find the little interlock pins until I was halfway through this exercise! I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult to unplug the new socket from the loco - so I put on my magnifiers and had a close look. Aha!
The connector is a JST ZH2.54 type.
I get mine from Aliexpress, but they take a while. I suspect Amazon or eBay might be quicker.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832830442479.html
Here’s all you ever wanted to know about JST connectors. If you scroll down to the XH type, you can see the interlocking tabs!!
https://www.mattmillman.com/info/crimpconnectors/common-jst-connector-types/