Connecting headlamp to new chassis - and general Annie questions

[Howard240]

I have a new Annie chassis I am attaching to a standard 6-4-0- body.  In the standard 4-6-0 the headlamp is attached to the smoke switch and then soldered to the motor.  The Annie chassis has two screw terminals.  Am I right that all I need to do is attach the wires to those terminals?

Question 2 - all the wires leading to those terminals are painted black.  Is there a reason for this?  I can tell which is which be the pick up wires, but I find the all black confusing.

Question 3 - My goal is to turn this loco into RC battery operation per instructions in Garden Railways Apr '14.  I converted one Annie and love it.  To conver the regular tender to an Annie I'll need to add wiring and the reverse light.  What kind of diode do I need to do that?  And what watt bulb is appropriate?

Question 4 - My existing Annie has a dim headlamp.  When I got it (used) I thought the lamp didn't work at all.  When I did the conversion it started working - somewhat.  Does it sound like I need to replace the bulb?  I can get the lamp body detached from the bracket, but see no way to get the bulb out or a new one in.  I haven't tried taking things apart to check wiring as I'm hesitant to mess up the complex drive gears (my new one has simple gears).

Sorry, I couldn't come up with 16 more questions to make 20 questions   :-)

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Howard,

Question 1 the headlight should not be connected to the smoke switch.

Question 2,  don't know why!

Question 3  The conversion in the Garden Railways uses the circuit in the Annie which powers the rear headlight as a power circuit, and the rear headlight is powered by the REVO receiver.  you will need to bring the wires from the circuit board on the Annie that power the rear headlight back to the tender to attach to the motor tabs on the Revo.  In your case you can just skip having a rear headlight, or add a 5MM warm white LED with a 1000 ohm resistor from the lighting wires on the REVO to the LED.  Make sure you get the polarity right. 

Question 4 I believe your older Annie has an LED headlight, usually they either work or they don't!    Not sure what "works somewhat" means.  you n eed to carefully pry off the lens as it comes out from the front.  after it is out you cut the wires  and replace the bulb or LED soldering the led leads or the bulb wires as necessary. test to make sure the light is working properly before reassembly.  If not reverse the wiring.  If a bulb I would replace it with a Warm white LED.

Hope this make some sense to you.

Bill

[Joe Satnik]

Dear All,

IIRC, the solder terminals on the back of the (Double Pole, Double throw) smoke switch on the Big Hauler (non-Annie) loco

are used as a convenient place to connect wires without having to pay for and install a separate terminal strip.

1 2    (My own numbering system, may be different than official Bachmann diagrams.)
3 4
5 6

Terminals 1 and 2 go to the smoke unit.

Terminals 3 and 4 are track power pickups (R and L), motor (dot and non-dot) and grain-of-wheat headlight (wire 1 and wire 2).

Terminals 5 and 6 are empty (unused).

Smoke "On" connects 3 to 1 and 4 to 2. (Track power to smoke unit.)

Smoke "Off" connects 3 to 5 and 4 to 6. (Track power to unused terminals.)

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[Howard240]

Thank you Bill and Joe.
I checked both my existing Annie and the regular 4-6-0 body that I'm using.  Both headlamps are wired to the central terminal on the smoke unit as Joe described.
So on the question of the leads from the headlight/smoke unit going to the new Annie chassis - should I connect them to the motor terminals? That seems to be the only place for them.

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Howard,

Yes to the center terminal is fine, It was not clear to me from your post that you were referring to the central terminal   I should have clarified that. 

Sorry,

Bill