Spectrum Analog 4-6-0 Pin Diagram?

[FallsvalleyRR]

Hello everyone.

I am seeking information on the pins under the cab of the Spectrum 4-6-0 Ma and Pa unit number 27.

I have decided to explore moving the Sound and DCC equippted tender from the Roundhouse 4-4-0 to use on the 4-6-0.

Im thinking each of the wires on that 4-4-0 tender should mate up with the pins under the 4-6-0 cab and allow the engine to have DCC and Sound.

Otherwise my alternative is to purchase a tender that is somewhat larger and build a DCC/Sound installation into it for the 4-6-0 and I am not ready to do that just yet.

I look forward to hearing what you think my best option is.

[Atlantic Central]

Fallsvalley,

Here is some info I developed from doing tender swaps, it may help:



Tender Swap â€" Bachmann medium Vanderbilt oil tender (Item #89905) with 63” driver 10 wheeler (Item #82307)

Initial test using jumpers provided with the tender â€" dead short, no operation.

Original plan â€" move 10 wheeler circuit board into new tender. This proved unworkable for several reasons, 10 wheeler circuit board too large and wires too short to fit into Vanderbilt tender without major modifications to both the tender and the circuit board.

New plan â€" can existing circuit board from Vanderbilt tender be rewired to work with 10 wheeler. A simple examination of both circuit boards revealed that while different, they both have the same basic connections, so the problem must lie in pin assignments in the connectors.

Tracing wires and a few simple checks revealed that the two wire connector simply brings the loco pickups to the circuit board. Reversing the wires on one end of the two wire jumper corrected this. Now the loco runs but in the wrong direction.

Two of the wires on the four wire plug are the motor leads. Reversing them gave us correct operational direction.

This only left the front headlight. The circuit board in the Vanderbilt tender is for the 2-8-0 which has 12 volt lamps for lighting. The 10 wheeler uses LED’s, this is the main reason the circuit board is different. Rather than trying to modify the circuit, I simply replaced the loco headlight LED with a 12 volt lamp.

Additionally I added weight to the Vanderbilt tender bringing it weight to about 5 oz. and replaced all couplers with genuine Kadee #148 on both the loco front and tender.

Result â€" loco now converted, runs well with original 10 wheeler draw bar and looks great. 

This issue seems to be tied to what tender cam with what loco in the first place. I do not have all of the Bachmann spectrum locos, but from what I have seen, read and experianced, the following may be a good begining of a compatablity chart:

Light Mouintain & Consolidation will work with all of the "medium" tenders.

Heavy Mountain and 2-6-6-2 will work with the long coal tender, hicken tender and long vandy tender

Russian shares same tender with some 10 wheelers, so I am guessing they share the same circuit board.

The 10 wheeler is really a wild card here because it comes with three different tenders, depending on roadname. Some have the low, small "pre 1900" looking tender, some have the small tender from the Russian and one has the same tender as the consolidation, but obviously with a different circuit board.

But again, I think most of these differences are just the pin assignments and the type of headlight.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

To add to what Sheldon wrote - the USRA light 2-10-2 has the USRA heavy tender, in conformity with the 2-6-6-2 and the USRA heavy 4-8-2 but it is NOT compatable with either.  Obviously a curcuit board swap with another USRA heavy tender would be easy.  Not necessarily true with the various Hickens/Vanderbilts.
Gene

[FallsvalleyRR]

I went ahead and tore the engine down  to all it's parts.

The pin diagram is as follows...

Viewing from above the cab with the engineer to the right, firebox in the center and the Fireman to the left.

There are 6 pins below the cab. There are 6 wires in a row going to all of the pins via a small circut board.

Now working in pairs from left to right are the pins to the following:

Fireman pins 2 = Motor

Center two pins firebox = Light. Apparently a LED driven by a circut board.

Engineer Pins x 2 on the right (Identified by being in it's own box and oriented fore and aft instead of amidships)

Those two pins by themselves are the track power pickup from the tender wheels.

The driving wheels have a pick up rod, pilot wheels pickup all coming down to two wires just behind the rear most driving wheel. Those two wires do join the other two wires from the tender at the circut board.

There you have it folks, I dont know if this is a prescribed pin layout for ALL engines but for the 4-6-0 I had that is what it's wired for.

The engine sustained too much damage trying to find the "Secret" screws under the cab, under the motor, inside the split frame etc... it all went into the trash. Good riddance too. They say you cannot have an omlette without breaking an egg once in a while.

I probably will wait and buy a completely factory assembled sound (For small steam below 4-6-2 and on down to 4-4-0's) and DCC equiptted engine and save myself the trouble of trying to hammer decoders and sound into analog engines.

[Atlantic Central]

FallsvalleyRR,

Seems to me you found out exactly what I told you as to pin asignments.

It is unfortunate that you where not able to successfully disassemble and reassemble the loco. While I do understand the notion of "broken eggs", there is also the notion of "jumping in over your head".

I have disassembled/reassembled several of those locos and did not see those screws as being very "secret".

The mounting/installing of sound decoders is not to be taken as a "beginner task" but rather would be considered "intermediate to advanced" depending on the loco.

Simple testing and following the info I provided would have allowed leaving the loco assembled, and just dealing with the tender. I don't know if the LED headlight could be made to work with DCC as I do not use DCC.

I hope you have better luck with you next modeling project.

Sheldon