Forklift trucks.

MaxSouthOz posted:

I've kinda lost track of where I am with these trucks.

A friend ordered me an Arttista one.  It's arrived, but not hollow for fitting decoders.

Here's one of my two Diecast Direct fitted up with a Digitrax DZ 126 decoder.

I've ground the bottoms off the tires to make them sit better.

And here's a movie I made of it to show the rotary beacon and headlights.

The sound is coming from the first truck I fitted up with a Loksound V 3.5

I hope that I haven't confused everyone. 

Max, that is very cool.  Are they powered from a transformer feed or is that a battery I see  wrapped in red?

OST issue #34 has an article on how to convert one of those new yellow forklifts into a vintage type.

They turned out very nice. I especially like the sound. Thanks for keeping us updated with your progress.

Thanks, Ed.  No.  My layout is DCC.  The red thing is a decoder which is fed from the DCC bus.  They both operate as locos.

The Digitrax DZ 126 is ideal as it's Z scale, so very small.  I put a 47Ω resistor across the motor wires to give it a load so I can program it.  Then I set CV's 2  5  and 6 to zero so the resistor doesn't get fried if the throttle is accidentally opened.

Digitrax have an interactive calculator so I could re-map the headlight (white) and rear light (yellow) wires to function keys 1 and 2 and change the function to rotary beacon on one of the wires.

http://www.digitrax.com/suppor...lators/#cv33_46_calc

The decoders are well priced, coming in at A$30.00 including postage from the US.

Because The Grand Plan is to run the layout with computer control, using decoders allows the computer access to the models to operate them.