Converting a Fleischmann DB BR101 (735509)

[chadbag]

1 hour ago, gavino200 said:

 

No idea. I haven't tested it yet. I'll let you know when the decoder arrives.

 

You have not run it under DC?

 

Reading other descriptions at stores of it it sounds like white only.

[gavino200]

24 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

You have not run it under DC?

 

 

Nope. The chances of it not working are minimal. And if it didn't work, I'm almost certain I could fix it. All in good time. 

[chadbag]

2 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

 

Nope. The chances of it not working are minimal. And if it didn't work, I'm almost certain I could fix it. All in good time. 

 

Much more patient man than I.  I always run them under DC to try them out (and so I can go back to the seller and work it out right away if there is a problem).   And so I know it works before putting a decoder in as a baseline.   I know you got this on your trip (right?) so working it out with the seller is not really an option if it doesn't.

 

Good luck for you!  Fingers crossed.

 

[gavino200]

5 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

Much more patient man than I.  I always run them under DC to try them out (and so I can go back to the seller and work it out right away if there is a problem).   And so I know it works before putting a decoder in as a baseline.   I know you got this on your trip (right?) so working it out with the seller is not really an option if it doesn't.

 

Good luck for you!  Fingers crossed.

 

 

Nope. I got the 80's Inter City and a bunch of HO stuff in Germany. I got the contemporary IC after I got home. 

 

Really, there's an extremely low probability that it won't work. I'm not in the least bit worried. I used to test with a 9V battery right before I installed a decoder. I've literally never bought a brand new loco that didn't work. Also, if one actually didn't work, it would be easier and more interesting to just fix it, than to send it back and get a replacement.

[Gryphr]

According to Fleischmanns Homepage, the current models of the BR101 (735507 Analog; 735577 Digital) only have headlights, no taillights.

[gavino200]

I never received the Fleischmann decoder from the seller - Osbornsmodels.com. No reply from them either. So I put in a report through paypal. Fortunately I found an old plug that fits the loco in my DCC bin. I've the sale gets cancelled I'll just wire the plug to an old ESU decoder that looks like a good fit.

 

[chadbag]

4 hours ago, gavino200 said:

I never received the Fleischmann decoder from the seller - Osbornsmodels.com. No reply from them either. So I put in a report through paypal. Fortunately I found an old plug that fits the loco in my DCC bin. I've the sale gets cancelled I'll just wire the plug to an old ESU decoder that looks like a good fit.

 

 

 

And that big cavity where the yellow/black wires are will fit a speaker if you end up with a sound compatible ESU or it has SUSI on it and you add a sound decoder in later...

[gavino200]

10 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

 

And that big cavity where the yellow/black wires are will fit a speaker if you end up with a sound compatible ESU or it has SUSI on it and you add a sound decoder in later...

 

Is there enough space on top between the metal body and the plastic shell to fit a big-ass sound decoder? I'm probably just going to put a motor-only decoder in. I was planning on using the cavity for the decoder.

[chadbag]

1 minute ago, gavino200 said:

 

Is there enough space on top between the metal body and the plastic shell to fit a big-ass sound decoder? I'm probably just going to put a motor-only decoder in. I was planning on using the cavity for the decoder.

 

What decoder are you using?  You should be able to put it up above the side where the decoder plugs in -- where the red and black wires are.  Won't it fit there?

 

[gavino200]

2 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

What decoder are you using?  You should be able to put it up above the side where the decoder plugs in -- where the red and black wires are.  Won't it fit there?

 

 

I haven't even checked yet. I was hoping to get the recommended Fleischmann decoder just for the novelty of a truly zero-effort plug-in experience. I don't mind waiting for train stuff. But I've already waited and it doesn't look like it's coming. I don't feel like starting the clock again.

 

I have a few things lying around. A Digitrax z,  D&H tiniest, a TCS z-something, and an ESU select micro that's missing three leads. As long as the ESU still works after soldering (it should), I think I'll use that. I want to keep the DH in reserve for when I have an impossible Japanese installation to do.

[chadbag]

3 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

 

I haven't even checked yet. I was hoping to get the recommended Fleischmann decoder just for the novelty of a truly zero-effort plug-in experience. I don't mind waiting for train stuff. But I've already waited and it doesn't look like it's coming. I don't feel like starting the clock again.

 

I have a few things lying around. A Digitrax z,  D&H tiniest, a TCS z-something, and an ESU select micro that's missing three leads. As long as the ESU still works after soldering (it should), I think I'll use that. I want to keep the DH in reserve for when I have an impossible Japanese installation to do.

 

Looking online that one is too long to put on top like I did.  You can put it in the cavity but you can probably also put a sugar cube speaker (smaller one) in the cavity with it.  Measure it out. That decoder has sound, right?  (based on ESU website)

[gavino200]

2 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

Looking online that one is too long to put on top like I did.  You can put it in the cavity but you can probably also put a sugar cube speaker (smaller one) in the cavity with it.  Measure it out. That decoder has sound, right?  (based on ESU website)

 

Oops, my bad. Its the LokPilot micro, not the the select. The LokSound Select Micro is the one I have in my GS-4. But it doesn't matter. To put in a sound decoder, I'd imagine you'd have to turn it 90 degrees and lay it on top. As opposed to placing it transversely, like you did.  If there's really enough vertical space on top to fit the height of a decoder then, pretty much any decoder should fit this thing. 

[gavino200]

I'd love to see a picture of the stock Fleischmann 101 that comes with sound installed, with the plastic shell off. I haven't found one online. I'm curious how they do it. 

 

I had the stock sound model demo'd to me and it sounds cool. But I think it's a bit weird when an electric loco is all the way down the other end of a layout and you can still hear the loco sounds clearly. Usually you can't hear an electric loco from a distance (I think).  

Edited June 5, 2018 by gavino200

[chadbag]

44 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

I'd love to see a picture of the stock Fleischmann 101 that comes with sound installed, with the plastic shell off. I haven't found one online. I'm curious how they do it. 

 

I had the stock sound model demo'd to me and it sounds cool. But I think it's a bit weird when an electric loco is all the way down the other end of a layout and you can still hear the loco sounds clearly. Usually you can't hear an electric loco from a distance (I think).  

 

Nothing is perfect I guess.     When you have a "God's Eye" view of the world, I guess you get "God's Hearing" as well.

 

Not sure if I will like sound or not.

 

Anyway, I found this about LokPilot and SUSI -- https://www.marklin-users.net/forum/posts/t32931-Lokpilot-and-SUSI   That is to a 21 pin decoder but the idea behind it might work.  I did not see anything about SUSI on the ESU website with the LokPilot.

 

[kvp]

I would like to mention that from the photos, it looks like the leds are soldered to the pickups and not connected properly to the bottom pcb. Also the diodes for generating the blue power for 6 pin decoders are also missing.

 

Maybe you could use a multimeter to trace the route of the light connections from the decoder socket to the lights. (with the decoder and track power removed)

 

ps: the loco must be white leds only, otherwise it would need a full light board rebuild for DCC

Edited June 5, 2018 by kvp

[gavino200]

17 hours ago, kvp said:

I would like to mention that from the photos, it looks like the leds are soldered to the pickups and not connected properly to the bottom pcb. Also the diodes for generating the blue power for 6 pin decoders are also missing.

 

Maybe you could use a multimeter to trace the route of the light connections from the decoder socket to the lights. (with the decoder and track power removed)

 

ps: the loco must be white leds only, otherwise it would need a full light board rebuild for DCC

 

The loco is white LEDs only. 

 

But I'm fairly sure this is wired correctly. Fleischmann does some quite fancy and un-intuitive wiring. Those four prongs are not for transferring pickup. They bring light current from the circuit board under the loco to the LEDs. 

 

Many German decoders don't have a blue wire. Instead you connect the positive side of the LED directly to track pickup. I don't understand why they use a different system to the Muricans, but I've encountered it many times and I'm pretty sure it's not an accident. 

 

Below is the (now discontinued) Fleischmann decoder recommended for this loco. Six pins. No blue. 

 

 

https://www.fleischmann.de/de/product/179331-0-0-1-4-00-501-004002/products.html

 

[kvp]

6 hours ago, gavino200 said:

Many German decoders don't have a blue wire. Instead you connect the positive side of the LED directly to track pickup. I don't understand why they use a different system to the Muricans, but I've encountered it many times and I'm pretty sure it's not an accident. 

 

Below is the (now discontinued) Fleischmann decoder recommended for this loco. Six pins. No blue. 

The 6 pin decoders need the blue (aka. light power) generated by two diodes. Leaving this out causes a half rectified wave to be generated by the low side of the loco decoder. This results in a 50% pwm signal with the drive transistors turned on. At least as long as you are not using zero stretching, transponding or mixed dcc/sx signals. In any of these cases any sides could get between 0 to 100% pwm (fully lit or dark led). The other side is usually (100-X)%of the first side. In short a mess. The two high side diodes are needed (both by the standard and in practice).

 

The american 7 wire system is better as it uses the decoder's diode bridge for both high and low side and allows decoder side power buffering. The 8 wire (pwr and gnd) system even allows external keepalive caps to be added. It's an afterthought to the old 6 pin standard but a good idea.

 

In this case i would look for shorts between the metal frame/pickups and the light circuits and any miswire on the circuit board.

[chadbag]

My initial problem with the lights under DCC was solved when I re-wired the locomotive based on an image that Fleischmann sent me.  They had swapped two wires at the factory.  After I did that, the LED lighting works under DCC.

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, chadbag said:

My initial problem with the lights under DCC was solved when I re-wired the locomotive based on an image that Fleischmann sent me.  They had swapped two wires at the factory.  After I did that, the LED lighting works under DCC.

 

Yes, I think brother kvp may have skimmed the thread and misunderstood the issue. Your light problem is solved. I never had one.

[kvp]

6 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

Yes, I think brother kvp may have skimmed the thread and misunderstood the issue. Your light problem is solved. I never had one.

Well, i did mention to look for miswires with a multimeter. The aforementioned diodes are still missing and the loco had DC directional lights by swapping the polarity of one LED. Imho this is not the correct way to wire a plug and play DCC ready loco. 'Just plug in a decoder and here is a list of solder modifications so it would work...'

 

Unfortunately lately both Fleischmann and even more so Brawa makes really bad circuit boards. (one Brawa even had shorts between socket pins, so hardwired to run in analog without a dummy plug)

 

Imho if Kato can get it right, everyone else could too. (Two high side diodes on the board for rectified light power, connect each led through the dummy plug to a pickup, add filter cap and connect motor connections in the plug too. Three components, two on the board one on the analog dummy plug. Also works with PWM-CL throttles in analog mode.)

[gavino200]

9 hours ago, kvp said:

Unfortunately lately both Fleischmann and even more so Brawa makes really bad circuit boards. (one Brawa even had shorts between socket pins, so hardwired to run in analog without a dummy plug)

 

 

Interesting. My brain has a hard time computing "German" and "Poor quality" together. I have a strong bias. (My German friends laugh at this).

 

I sort of understand what you say kvp. And it sounds right. But your level of electronic knowledge sophistication is way above mine. I really only have high school level electronic knowledge. When I hit an impasse and really need to create or modify a circuit, I can understand what you tell me after much re-reading and supplemental research. In this case I'll take what you say on faith, but I likely won't mess with this thing unless it doesn't work at all.

 

As always I appreciate your input 🙂 

Edited June 7, 2018 by gavino200

[gavino200]

This is it. A Fleischmann 685403. The wire leads were super long on this decoder. The shell wouldn't close with it unadjusted.  I shortened the wires and resoldered them to the 6 pin plug. This is the basic configuration of the decoder that Fleishmann made specifically for this install, but decided to discontinue. The black goo is liquid tape btw.

 

It fits nicely. A potential advantage is that it could be easily removed if for DC function. However, I don't plan to do this ever, so there's no conceivable advantage to having the plug. Cutting the wires this short and soldering them to the plug is a massive pain in the arse. More hassle than most regular wire-in decoder installs. 

 

I would advise against anyone using a Fleishmann decoder for this install. Instead, do it the way Chadbag did it. There's actually a slight ledge molded into the loco body to make Chad's method possible. So the loco seems like it's designed with that kind of install in mind.

 

Apart from the technical difficulty, there's a second reason not to use a Fleischmann decoder. They're designed for 12 volt use. If they sense a voltage lower than that, they stop responding. It thinks it's detecting DC. I think there's a way to change these settings but I haven't figured it out yet. I'm discussing it in another thread. You also have to program it manually. JMRI doesn't work with these decoders.