3-Truck Shay Firebox & Ashpan Circuits?

[DavidP]

Hello all,

new to this forum and to large scale.  I'm rebuilding a wreck of a three-truck Shay which had the circuit boards removed and cut-off wires floating loose under the bunker when it arrived (supposedly setup for wireless control according to the eBay ad but was absolutely unusable when it arrived - the shop that sold it to me did do a partial refund when I sent photos of what was missing under the bunker and water tank).

I've just finished wiring it with an ESU 5XL decoder and an Airwire receiver after tracing all the wires including the loom to the water tank on the third truck (Bachmann colour coding changes in the loom to the rest of the engine when testing across the pins on the connector board).

All is working but my question is does any one have knowledge of how to wire both the ashpan flicker board and the firebox flicker board?

The Bachmann circuit diagram just shows the colour of the wires going to the main circuit board (which does not exist in my engine courtesy of the butchery done to it before) and does not show any resistors in line with the positive LED feeds.

The Ashpan board has 3 pin connections:

• Y1 - Yellow
• R1 - Green
• GND - Blue

The firebox board has four pin connections with no indication which is ground:

• Orange
• Brown (across 2 pin connections)
• Red

I'm not prepared to make any assumptions here based on colours - given both wires to the cab light are purple and the ashpan ground is blue!

I also think the ashpan board has been cooked by not having resistors in the positive feeds so I will probably have to replace the LEDS as well.  (the board doesn't appear as a spare part on the Bachmann site)

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

David P
Melbourne, Australia 

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Hi David,

While I can't help with the decoder, I was thinking it might be best to determine if the Firebox and Ashpan circuits are really cooked using an external power supply and a 1000ohm resistor as the first step. If they do then you could experiment with the onboard wiring. If you have a multimeter you could check the decoder output circuit to the firebox and ashpan circuits and see what voltage it is putting out then use the resistor if necessary. Are there any resistors on the ashpan and and firebox circuits??

Wish I could be of more help but that is my best shot.  The electronics whizzes will have better ideas.  Best of luck with your project.

Bill

[DavidP]

Hi Bill,

thanks for your reply - I have not connected them to the decoder as there are no resistors on the boards and the wires were loose under the coal bunker (no circuit board).

I'm assuming there were resistors in line with the output connections located on the circuit boars but the Bachmann schematic doesn't show any circuit diagrams for the board (just wires going to various points on the board).

I assume the firebox LEDs are cooked by the color underneath them - in the absence of any help from someone who has done away with the circuit board I will put resistors in line with the LED inputs and see how I go.

Regards,

David P
Melbourne, Australia

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Why not use blinking LEDs and just turn them on?

[DavidP]

Hi greg,

thanks for the email - I have done this on a 1:48 scale installation in the firebox of a Wiseman Model Services Willamette winch on my "Winch #3 diorama) so I may go down this path.  I would post an image of this but apparently the upload directory is full....

The flickering ashpan and firebox are not really an issue when used outside - just wanted to see if I could get them to work (along with the smoke unit) without having a Bachmann cicuit board.

Probably need brighter LEDs than the ones I used in 1:48 scale.

Cheers,

David P
Melbourne, Australia

 

[Kevin Strong]

David, when I did my 4-6-0, I just hardwired the firebox LEDs to one of the function outputs on the Blunami decoder. I'd expect if you can trace the wires, you could do the same with the Shay LEDs. The Blunami has a firebox flicker lighting output setting which negates the need for any external flickering circuit. What I should have done was to wire the firebox directly to the power output since the firebox would have to be glowing for a steam locomotive to have power to move, but I just used one of the function outputs and have to remember to turn it on to see it. Which you can't if the firebox door is closed anyway, but that's another story.

Later,

K

[Greg Elmassian]

The ESU sound decoders (that you are using) have firebox flicker function for LEDs