Large Scale Central

RailBoss 4 and Bachmann Shay Flicker

Electronics Power and Sound
#1

I’m connecting the flicker board on a Bachmann 2-Truck Shay to a RailBoss 4. Initially I thought that I could use a direct to battery connection but since the board apparently drives the lights based upon polarity and the firebox flicker changes intensity based upon voltage, that’s not going to work.

I’m guessing that it will be best is to use the RB4’s lighting connections:1, 3 & 4. Then connect the remaining flicker board power supply to the RB4’s M- and M+ connections along with the motors.

Does this sound correct to you all or does anyone have another suggestion?

Thanks, Mark

Cross posted to MLS.

#2

Hi Mark -

I’ve done this with a Railboss (but with an Enhanced, not the 4). I can’t remember exactly how I wired it but I do have diagrams somewhere. I’ll look it up and post again in the morning.

My Shay restoration / battery conversion thread is here: http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/18097/restoring-a-1st-gen-bachman-sha

#3

Found it…

Powered directly from the battery. Head and Tail lights were converted to LED and wired directly to the Railboss lighting outputs.

After this drawing was made I decided to use 14.8V rather than 11.1 as shown. Flicker woks great and is constant.

© Note - Some portions of the image above were borrowed from Del Taparo’s RailBoss manual and the Phoenix Big Sound 97 Manuals. I was too lazy to draw them myself. I hope the owners don’t mind. I grant royalty free use to both G Scale Graphics and Phoenix Sound Systems, Inc. should either wish to use my enhancements. Or if a copyright holder wishes, I will remove this image.

#4

Jon:

Thanks for the response.

I’m using 14.8 batteries in mine. The reason that I’m thinking about attaching the flicker board to the motor connections is so that the LEDs rate and intensity will change with the voltage as it does when it’s track powered. I’ll try both to see if there’s an appreciable difference.

Mark

p.s. nice schematic, what software did you use to create it? I see you give credit to Del and others so I assume that you started with a scan or cut/paste from their web content.

#5

Thanks Mark.

The effect is pretty subtle anyway, so at full intensity all the time it looks fine to me. I never ran my Shay on track power as it was trashed when I got it, so I never experienced the varied output. 14.8V works fine, that’s what I ended up using.

The diagram was made in Microsoft Visio. The drawings from G-Scale Graphics and Phoenix came out of their PDF documents. I don’t recal the steps, but they were first converted to .JPG format, sized to fit then “placed” in the Visio document.

#6

Jon:

My layout is indoors and about waist high so the flicker will be more noticeable I think.

I use Visio at work. Your approach never occurred to me, good idea and I’m stealing it!

On my way to the workbench to start the “final” modification, shouldn’t take too long.

Again, thanks for the response.

Mark

#7

Just to close out this thread, I have connected the LEDs to the RB4 and the flicker board to the spare terminals on the Battery Conversion Module. I did try the flicker board on the motor terminals, but there was not enough difference when the train was running around the track and the flicker went out when the throttle was in the “off” position.

And now the bad news - The 6-screw plastic trucks have started to crumble as most everyone has predicted they would. This engine has been unused since purchase about 3 years ago as NOS. It has been run less than 30 minutes of break-in and testing.

Well, I guess my XMAS gift this year is a pair of replacement die cast ones. I just ordered them from Reindeer Pass as their price was the best that I could find online today.

Ho, ho, ho!

Thanks to Jon for his response.

#8

Thanks for helping out Jon. Glad he got you going Mark. I have been way too busy this month to check the forums much.

#9
Mark Hadler said:
Well, I guess my XMAS gift this year is a pair of replacement die cast ones.  

 The instruction said : red goes to red wire , black goes to black wire, sounds simple.... My front truck had two black and the back truck had two red .
Good luck!

 



#10

If you are doing a battery conversion you may just want to eliminate the truck wipers and wire direct to the motors.

#11

Mine has just black wires on both trucks. It was easy to hook up one set of wires at a time to see which way they ran when power was applied. I had already removed the pick-up ball bearing as per George Schreyer’s site; I guess I’ll be doing it again on the die cast trucks.

The truck are supposed to arrive Friday so I’ll have something to do this weekend.

Mark

#12

Jon

nice teaser shot of the Yeasu!

#13

:] Been thinking about going for my General this winter and getting back into it. Finals haven’t been hot on that rig for close to 5 years.

#14

Hijack—General is Easy!!! Promise :slight_smile:

#15

Just to close out this thread a second time - I received the replacement metal trucks on Friday and installed them today. Thanks to Reindeer Pass for the excellent price and service.

The Shay chugs along nice and slowly and all of the lights work as desired. So to recap:

Battery and boards in tender, room to spare (no sound).
Trucks have the wiper assembly removed.
Connected flicker board to the spare terminals on the Battery Conversion Module.
Headlights connected to RB4’s LED terminals instead of flicker board.

Once again, thanks to all who helped.

Mark