I have determined that i need a 5v power supply to power lights, firebox flicker and chuff sensors on the Bachman C-19 after i rip out the factory board in the tender. be advised i am electronically chalenged, but was able to verify these voltages at the board output. i intend to use airwire board to control headlight, but will need to regulate down to 5v also.
Need simple solutions.
If you haven’t ripped it out yet, don’t.
There is an easy way to modify the dummy plug so that you can leave it in place for use with any non PnP ESC and still have all the lights and smoke etc.
Al, I would say go with Tony on this. The board most likely has the dropping voltage regulator for the flicker and chuff sensor on it. The Airwire board should be able to power the Bachmann board if you haven’t thrown in out yet.
Ditto… if you are electrically challenged as you say, and need simple solutions as you also say, leave the board in and use the simplest solution.
Greg
Well i expected some reasonable thoughts on this, but so far the experts are only finding fault with my Ideas. CPV Products however clearly posts this on the front page of there decoder manual
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/rgsnh/warning.JPG)
what i am not capable of in electronics is looking at a circut and determining its purpose, i know what resistors, diodes, Etc. do but cannot design the circut I certainly can assemble from a parts list. my desire is to reduce the three spools of wire in this locomotive down to about a half. It makes no sense to me to run wires from the front of the locomotive to the board and back again. i want a simple system that i can debug when something goes bad.
A great way to get five volts is to use a five volt regulator. Cheap, easy to wire up, and reliable. Back in the old days, an LM309 was the standard. Maybe still is.
Also, some remote control radios and speed controllers have a 5v output, they call a BEC which stands for Battery Elimination Circuit and is good for a small amount of power.
No Problem Al.
You have your desired way of going about it and that is fine. My suggestion would be to contact CVP and ask them how to do it.
If you rip everything out you will lose most of the loco features and have no Bachmann warranty.
Your choice.
Me, I like to do things the easy way.
5V regulator, capacitor across the output, heat sink, fits in a corner out of the way.
LED’s…use full battery voltage but a current limiting resistor, instead of the Kader current limiting transistors that won’t even cause an incandescent to glow…how much room do a couple of 1/8W resistors take? In the past, Bachmann has used seemingly indiscriminately 500 ohm and 1K ohm for the job…a guess would be whatever was cheaper to buy that particular day.
I see someone mentioned Bachmann Warranty. I need to send them a bill for cleaning the spewed coffee off my keyboard.
So, something quits.
You pack the entire thing up, ship it at your expense, they don’t know what to do, send you another. All your detail and custom road name lettering goes into the crusher on the loading dock.
You remove the source of what used to be most of the issues, i.e. circuitry failure (sorry, Bob…K-27’s with smoke units that wouldn’t turn off, class lights that wouldn’t turn on…all failed transistors, surface mount, ROHS complaint solder…) and you won’t have issue with that part any more.
If your components fail you know how to fix it.
Minatronics makes a neat flicker board…just wire in your LED’s, mount it in the firebox, connect up power, and you’re set. Now what do you have? Nothing but a speaker in the tender. Geez. What a concept.
Signing back off again.
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