B-Man Baldwin 4-6-0 + Tender

[schavey]

Is it possible to install a B-Man decoder or a sound module, without hiring a neruro/micro brain-surgeon?

[skipgear]

If you want to use the tender that the loco comes with, it's possible but tight. You will have to remove the factory decoder board completely to make room, hard wire the new decoder, and include resistors for the headlight.

[jdha]

Hi slipgear,  your comment about the resistor in the feed to the lamp is timely as I've been looking at a circuit board in a Spectrum tender.  The lamp feed has no less than 5 resistors - 2 x 220K  2 x 470 ohm in parallel and 1 x 1.5K.  There are also two diodes and a capacitor.  What on earth for?  Perhaps to handle the voltage variations when used on a DC layout instead of DCC?

[skipgear]

The diodes are for directional lighting. It's just a little backup protection for the LED. The capacitor is protect agains BEMF spikes from the motor. If the loco is runing at high speed and momentarily looses contact, the spinning motor can create a voltage spike that at minimum can cause the LED to flicker against the direction of travel or even burn it up.