Spectrum Climax Decoder

[rockpileava]

Hi all,
A friend of mine has a Tsunami decoder that came out of a 2011 G scale Climax. He replaced it with a Phoenix decoder and has offered to give it to me. I have a Spectrum G Scale 0-4-0, which we are planning to convert to Airwire and battery operation. I want to use the Tsunami as the sound decoder for the engine and I have a plan as to how to fit it since it's a board. I do have a couple of questions about it. I want to know if when it was in the Climax, did the board run the engine directly or did it go through another decoder to handle the voltage? Does the Tsunami handle the amp draw of the porter on its own? Thanks and please let me know.
Trevor

[Kevin Strong]

If it came out of the 2nd generation Climax, it's a motor/sound decoder on one board, so it will run your 0-4-0 with sound. It's the "plug and play" design, having two rows of pins on either end of the board that would simply plug into the socket in the bunker of the Climax.

To use that in the 0-4-0, you'll need an adapter board to plug it into. I don't know if Crest has the two-row adapter boards available or not. RCS of Australia (I think) offers one. You can also make your own, using SIP (single inline pin) sockets and a do-it-yourself perforated PC board. (The SIP sockets are available in 30-pin lengths; just cut off what you need.) I don't know if the wiring diagram for the Climax is online or not. It didn't jump out at me when searching. However, the pin out for the sockets is standardized, so any socket-equipped Bachmann loco for which there's a wiring diagram will show you what goes where.

In terms of current capacity, coming out of the Climax, it should be more than adequate for the 0-4-0. Your challenge will be fitting it, but there's a fair amount of room under the saddle if it's the saddle-tank version. I'm not sure about the side-tank version.

Later,

K