VR Tait by Trainbuilder

Items used:

ESU 58429 LokSound 5 21-MTC DCC decoder

ESU 51957 Adapter board

ESU 54671 Powerpack Mini

DCCSound Premium Speaker for Trainbuilder Tait

Disassesmbly

The body is separated from the chassis via 6 screws on the underside of the chassis.

The body is carefully lifted from the chassis and two, 2 pin connectors disconnected.

Most of the DC lighting circuit is removed from the body, as it is not used with this DCC installation. Each LED is disconnected, with most of the lead length left in place.

On the chassis floor, the motor wires are disconnected from the power pickup wires.

Installation

Items are laid out by the chassis. The speaker resides down the # 2 end, while the adapter board, decoder and Powerpack are located in the mid section.

1) The speaker is wired to the decoder (it can alternatively be wired to the adaptor board if desired). It is then fixed to the chassis with a small amount of glue.

2) The Powerpack mini's wires are shortened then the unit is wired to the decoder.

3) The RHS track front and rear wires are wired to the red wire from the adaptor board.

4) The LHS track front and rear wires are wired to the black wires from the adaptor board.

5) The two motor wires are connected to the orange and grey wires from the adaptor board.

6) Test run the model to check the motor operation before proceeding with the body work.

7) The following lighting outputs are utilised in this installation:

1. Front headlight (F0f)

2. Rear headlight (F0r)

3. Front kerosene emergency lamp (Aux 1)

4. Rear kerosene emergency lamp (Aux 2)

5. Front red marker lights (Aux 3)

6. Rear red marker lights (Aux 4)

7. Interior lighting (Aux 5)

*Aux 6 is used for the Powerpack control, so Aux 6 is not utilised for lighting.

NB. A 1 kOhm resistor is applied to each lighting output.

The order of wiring for Aux 1 through 5 is not critical as they may be remapped in software later.

To make room for new LEDs fitted for the emergency lamp and headlight at the forward end, the lead weight was trimmed down by about 5mm in length.

As the model comes from the factory, the kero lamp light and canopy light are physically driven from the one LED. These lights on the prototype are independent and not related, so in this installation the front red marker/canopy lights are modified to work off one LED, while the kero lamp has its own LED. The same is done for the rear.

Once all the lighting has been wired up, the interior light bar is refitted via two small screws and the body reattached to the chassis.