3 truck shay

[dlb]

I am looking to convert a 3-truck shay (dcc with on board sound)
item # 82698 to battery power revolution.  Has anyone done this
and are there instructions available?

thanks,
David

[Kevin Strong]

Pretty simple, really. There are 4 wires (red, black, orange, grey) feeding the decoder on one end, and 6 or 7 wires on the other. Disconnect the decoder, paying attention to how those wires connect to the main PC board. The red and black wires are power to the board from the rails, or in your case, from the battery. The orange and grey wires go to the motor.

On the other end, you'll find all the lighting and sound connections. Purple goes to the speaker. Blue should be a common +V to the lights. White, Yellow, and Brown should be ground returns. White goes to the front headlight, yellow to the rear headlight, and brown provides power for the cab and smoke unit. The Revolution does not have a dedicated output for the cab and smoke unit, but I'm 99% sure you can tap the brown wire to ground (black wire from battery) and make that connection. It's been a few years since I installed the Revolution in a 3-truck Shay.

BTW, the wiring diagram can be found here:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/82494.pdf

Look on page 14 for the wiring instructions for the sound-equipped Shay.

If you wish to use the sound on the Revolution, you merely need to connect the speaker output from the Revolution to the purple wires going to the speaker. Otherwise, you can run silent, or hook up a sound unit of your choice.

Later,

K

[dlb]

Thanks Kevin,

I did sit down this morning and came up with the same as you did.
I removed the decoder and pluged the 6 wire cable back into the main board
As per the DC drawing. Seems to work ok.  I hope to finish-up the installation tomorrow.
I am going to put in a 18.5v cordless renovations battery and use the revolution sound.

Seems strange that the soundtrack dcc decoder will only handle below 21v. 
It shuts down at 21v as per their manual.
I thought dcc decoders went to at least 24v.

David







David