no.89900 Medium length vanderbilt tender

[GN.2-6-8-0]

Seeing as this tender is not issued with any of the Bachmann locomotives and thinking it would look quite handsome behind the 52"drivered 4-6-0
I'm wondering is this tender DCC ready as most of the Spectrum line.
Again realising it has no locomotive assignment ,and  being a vanderbilt which doesn't useally lend themselves to easy access , would this be a workable combination? 
Has anyone utilized this tender and what are your thoughts....

[Atlantic Central]

This tender is/was offered behind several versions of the 2-8-0. I have them behind both of my 63" driver 4-6-0's and they look very good. you will need to do the following:

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

[GN.2-6-8-0]

Sheldon

Thanks for the wealth of information ,my plan is to get the 52'' drivered ten wheeler with the pre 1900 tender as my russian also has the 52'' drivers. That plus its just a really handsome little guy think they'll really look good doubleheading together.
Just think it would look a bit huskier with the vanderbilt,never been a big fan of the small low early tenders. 

[SteamGene]

The "medium" Vandy works electrically with the Consolidation and the USRA light Mountain. 

Word of warning.  The USRA 2-10-2 tender is externally the same as the tender with the USRA 2-6-6-2 and one of the USRA heavy 4-8-2s.  Internally it is totally different. 
Gene