Thomas I assume you are opening the engine itself and not the tender. Personally I think DCC ready is deceptive in this scale as not everything has a universal jack to plug a DCC board into. Depending on what decoder you are planning to use your best bet is to remove the existing boards like others are saying and start fresh as there is not much room in there to begin with. Also do yourself a favor pull the speaker from the engine. I used the Visaton 2.5 inch that will just fit into the box I then used a Tide laundry detergent cap that cut bottom off of as a baffle. Trust me this will improve the sound from your engine! It does require you to cut off the sides of the plate that normally fits over the speaker so it can stand up inside the body of the loco and get some longer screws to hold plate on but it really improves the sound.
Dan did mine (I’m not the first owner)… so what dan said went for my loco too…
I agree with Joseph, the stock speaker sucks and needs some baffles… intending on adding one to tender too, like a 4" one. Have done this in a brass AML loco and chuff was great.
Greg
Thanks for everyones’ advice. I will eventually remove all the factory electronics and replace with a Massoth XL DCC power decoder and retain the existing Phoenix unit. The speaker replacement is a good idea too. But that’s a lot of work and in the meantime, for a “quick and dirty” DCC conversion, I’d like to take advantage of the DCC-Ready feature that USA Trains adverstised for this loco. So, does this loco have a DCC-Ready board or not, and if yes, where is it located in the loco, and if not, then USA Trains committed false advertising!
Tom
Thomas White said:
Hi Folks - I’ve owned a J1e Hudson for many years running it on DC power. Now that I’ve set up a large radius DCC garden railway, I’m ready to convert this 40 pound loco to DCC. It’s supposed to be DCC-ready for installation of a DCC decoder but I can’t figure out where to access the decoder interface. I’ve taken the three screws out that hold the loco cover on and there’s no DCC interface board. Where do I access the interface board?
Thanks
Tom
Tom,
I looked at the info on the Charlesro.com site and the ad does not say it is DCC ready. I’m confused?
http://charlesro-com.3dcartstores.com/J1e-Hudson-Locomotive_c_162.html
Joe Zullo said:
Thomas White said:
Hi Folks - I’ve owned a J1e Hudson for many years running it on DC power. Now that I’ve set up a large radius DCC garden railway, I’m ready to convert this 40 pound loco to DCC. It’s supposed to be DCC-ready for installation of a DCC decoder but I can’t figure out where to access the decoder interface. I’ve taken the three screws out that hold the loco cover on and there’s no DCC interface board. Where do I access the interface board?
Thanks
Tom
Tom,
I looked at the info on the Charlesro.com site and the ad does not say it is DCC ready. I’m confused?
http://charlesro-com.3dcartstores.com/J1e-Hudson-Locomotive_c_162.html
Joe - Attached is a copy of the Hudson Owner’s Manual…note Page 4, DCC Delay MOde, line 7 “The locomotive is DCC Ready.” I can’t find the other documentation that came with my locomotive about 10 years ago, but I recall it gave me the decoder installation instructions, something about removing some screws on the bottom of the locomotive to access the decoder interface. Maybe they didn’t put the decoder interface into all their production runs?
There is a reference to DCC in the manual, but it is wonky, apparently there is a switch for the motor that adds a delay … weird…
In that block of text it says DCC ready. Go figure… it’s a rats nest of wiring.
From the manual:
DCC (DELAY) MODE The locomotive is equipped with a “delay feature”. In the DCC mode position the delay feature is activated. This allows the sound and smoke units to start up before the locomotive begins to move. The loco begins to move slowly at approximately 8 volts. At this point the sound and smoke units are fully activated. The locomotive begins to move progressively faster as the voltage is turned up higher. The locomotive is DCC ready. In order to install a decoder you must remove the delay feature circuit. There are four terminal screws that need to be released in order to remove the four wires connecting the delay feature (see wiring diagram in Phoenix sound instructions manual). You are now ready to install a decoder of your choice to the locomotive. The circuit will allow the decoder to operate the motors and lights only. The sound and smoke units are connected to track power directly
Greg
Tom,
I see what it says in the manual. Very confusing. Good luck with this project. Sorry I can’t help.
What all the helpful advice missed is where the heck is the darn connector or screw terminals for the DCC decoder. Advice is (usually) helpful, and (usually) appreciated, but so far I haven’t read where anybody answered the OP’s actual question on where the thing is located in the locomotive or tender.
That’s because nobody knows, yet! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)
Dave:
Hopefully a takeaway from my post is it’s not “DCC ready” in that there are convenient terminals or sockets for connections.
I take DCC ready that:
- there are simple connectors or preferably screw terminals to attach the wiring for DCC conversion/installation.
- there is a simple way to disconnect the track pickups from the motors
- Once #2 is achieved, that the track pickups and motor leads are completely isolated from each other.
- all lighting is amenable to a common, positive ground
- all lighting units consume less than 100 ma each
- preferably lighting can be run with 5 volts, not rectified track voltage (optional)
- there are no huge caps or inductors on the motor.
I’d say that the USAT Hudson fails in most all cases, and I would not personally call it DCC ready.
Greg
I agree with Greg - this locomotive is not what DCC-ready normally provides. After re-reading the Owner’s Manual in that Page 4 section, it basically states to unconnect the four wires connected to the Delay Circuit and then apparently you connect these four wires to the decoder. I’ll investigate to see if I can identify this circuit and the four wires. If not, I’ll probably just remove the existing electronics and install a Massoth XL Power Decoder to operate the motor, lights, and smoke unit, leave the Phoenix unit for the sound powered directly by track power.
Thanks again for everyone’s inputs.
Also, removing the Phoenix sound unit and installing a full featured DCC decoder will allow you to have more realistic sounds, better smoke unit control, better sound control by reading motor back EMF instead of voltage.
I did Sean’s and Greg’s USA Hudson and several others. I removed all electronics and just used a single full featured decoder. I control the smoke heater and fan for stop/run/heavy load, programmed the firebox as a Gyro, turn off cab light as soon as the engine starts to move. Also to conserve current I tied bottom side lights in series.
Everyone - After further investigation of the factory wiring situation in the loco, I decided to forget trying to use the basically non-existant DCC-Ready feature to install a DCC decoder with the existing wiring. Instead, as also recommended by everyone, I stripped all the electronics and wiring out leaving only the two track power wires coming from the loco’s motor block.
I appreciate Dan Pierce’s recommendation to install a DCC Power/Sound Decoder instead of using the existing Phoenix sound unit. But I like the quality of the Phoenix Sound units so I’m either going to reuse the existing Phoenix board (will test it out on my Phoenix PC Interface software) or install a new Phoenix PB8 or PB17 board. There are plenty of on/off switches provided in the loco to wire a power on/off switch for the Phoenix board that will be available when I need to program CVs on the DC/DCC power decoder. I know Dan and others swear by other DCC brands, which is fine, but I’m primarily a Massoth DCC components user and I have a Massoth dealer in Germany for my inventory. So, I’ll be installing a Massoth XL power decoder. I’ve also replaced the existing speaker with a brand new Massoth/Visaton FRS 7 8 Ohm 8 Watt 200 - 20,000 Hz speaker that can be seen in the below photo of my stripped loco. Shouldn’t take me long to install the Massoth XL decoder, rewire the Phoenix sound unit operating from track power, wire the headlight, taillight on the tender, and the smoke unit.
Does anyone know the voltage capacity of the smoke unit…I assume I should provide it full 22 volts dc current from the XL decoder?
Thanks!
Tom
Is the smoke unit the original TSA unit ?
Note the tape!!! This is a whole story in itself… will wait for Tom’s answer… (the labeling in this picture makes it obvious, normally shortened to TAS Train America Studios)
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Is the smoke unit the original TSA unit ?
Sean - Yes, it’s the UST factory unit…see photo. It appears Greg and you are about to say “replace it”! So, I’ll probably replace it with the Massoth pulsed smoke unit which I’ve installed in several LGB locomotives.
Tom
Thomas White said: It appears Greg and you are about to say “replace it”! So, I’ll probably replace it with the Massoth pulsed smoke unit which I’ve installed in several LGB locomotives.
Tom
Good call …
So, the TSA unit is an OK unit as far as older designs go. It will have a pulsed input, but the amount of smoke it produces is pretty weak. The overall mechanical construction is good.
The piece of black tape is because when installed by USAT, the metal body of the smoke unit shorted against the metal chassis of the Hudson, and promptly killed the smoke unit’s electronics.
If the smoke unit still works, keep it, maybe for a less expensive project, or small loco that is on DC.
You might find the information I have on it useful: https://elmassian.com/index.php/large-scale-train-main-page/dcc-battery-rc-electronics/smoke-units
There are some tips and wiring instructions and warnings.
Greg Elmassian said:
So, the TSA unit is an OK unit as far as older designs go. It will have a pulsed input, but the amount of smoke it produces is pretty weak. The overall mechanical construction is good.
The piece of black tape is because when installed by USAT, the metal body of the smoke unit shorted against the metal chassis of the Hudson, and promptly killed the smoke unit’s electronics.
If the smoke unit still works, keep it, maybe for a less expensive project, or small loco that is on DC.
You might find the information I have on it useful: https://elmassian.com/index.php/large-scale-train-main-page/dcc-battery-rc-electronics/smoke-units
There are some tips and wiring instructions and warnings.
Okay, thanks, Greg. I’ll keep the UST smoker for possible use in some other loco application using DC power. I assume it will take the full bore 20 - 24 volts DC.
Tom
Ahh Grasshopper, you must read the web site!
Seriously, TAS indicates that you should specify the max voltage for the unit at time of ordering, so if you got one from a O scale loco, chances are it would be set for a lower voltage.
If I remember correctly, when I called them, they just put a resistor in the input to limit voltage (!!!) according to your track voltage.
So far, I have not had issues on ones from the Hudson running on 24v levels.
You might tag it so if you get one from an O scale loco, for example, you know which is which. If you don’t want it, I’d give you a few bucks to have it as a spare, even though I am not using any of them right now.
Greg