MTH PS1 K4 Legacy update

@Rppoind posted:

I shelved this project last fall after gathering all the parts plus connectors with pins and wires.  I have Bruk's excellent wiring diagrams from this forum. It's time to put this thing together. My "core" is a MTH PS1 Pennsylvania K4 cab 5400. I've stripped out all of the old electronics,cleaned and lubed gearbox and linkage. Very pleased with how smooth and quite the Pittman motor and gearbox operate. Running on rollers using a bench DC supply I watched the milliamps drop to 450 after an hour or so. The RCMC seems to fit best up in the boiler area. Railsounds Lite and LTC1 will be in the tender.

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

Richard

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

Richard

Yes you can, but the biggest thing about hiding the antenna in the coal pile is location, location, location, …..Trust me, I’ve learned what does and doesn’t work as far as where you can hide the antenna. You have to imagine the tender shell as a rectangle. Wherever the metal ends, is part of the rectangle. That “imaginary “ rectangle is the plane. What I’ve found is you have to be outside that plane. So too far inside that rectangular plane, the “imaginary” line, and you can lose reception. The higher the antenna is away from the rectangle, the better the reception is. I usually leave the stock coal pile virtually alone, and drill through the top of the coal bunker from the inside, then using soft thin sheet brass, form the brass to the top of the pile. Solder a leader to the brass, then color the brass with a black sharpie. Cement that to the original coal pile, after threading the wire through the hole. Cement new coal to the blackened brass to hide, spreading it out over the old coal for a nice blend in…….I usually leave this step to absolute end, this way I can test my reception and be sure I can control the engine 100% with no reception issues,….you can temporarily tape down the brass strip and see what you can & can not get away with,…..your layout may vary, but I can tell you from experience, it’s easy to to get the antenna too low & have no reception, or lose it on various places …..

Pat

@Rppoind posted:

My question for the group is the antenna. I am aware that scraping the coal load and putting wire or a brass plate under a new coal load will work. My question is can I use a unused tether wire to connect the antenna to the engine RCMC?

You can also float the antenna shell.  For the last couple I've done, I cut out a gasket from .020 black Styrene sheet and used nylon screws to attach the shell back on.  The shell becomes the antenna, and I can assure you, it's a good antenna!   This is a similar technique to what Weaver and SGL used to use for their TMCC locomotives, but they had the gaskets punched out of something like thick fishpaper.

Pat and John.......Many thanks for your responses. I have have floated a tender shell using kapton tape and nylon screws. I'll experiment with coal first but check operation before adding more on top. Good to know using a tether lead will work! I will also have BT on this engine.

Richard

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You can also float the antenna shell.  For the last couple I've done, I cut out a gasket from .020 black Styrene sheet and used nylon screws to attach the shell back on.  The shell becomes the antenna, and I can assure you, it's a good antenna!   This is a similar technique to what Weaver and SGL used to use for their TMCC locomotives, but they had the gaskets punched out of something like thick fishpaper.

If it’s done clean & neat like you suggest with a fixed gasket, then ok, but too many I’ve torn apart had gooey, gummy, nasty electrical tape affixed to the frame, with all kinds of wallered out holes to make the tender frame holes not rise up into the tender stand offs,…not to mention the amount of times I couldn’t get the nylon screw out of the hole cause there’s nothing left to grab, or it just spins because the over zealous installer cranked on it like a grade 8 bolt 😂😂😂…

Pat

Well, first off, I'd like to strangle anyone that ever uses black electrical tape anywhere on a locomotive!

As far as wallered out holes, I use nylon screws that match the existing holes, I don't do anything to the holes.  The reason I use the small diameter handled Whia drivers is so it's not possible for me to get carried away with torque.  I have used Kapton tape if it's a difficult build that I need to wrap the tape around the frame for insulation to work, but I do prefer the gasket as a clean solution.

Weaver and SGL used shoulder washers for the holes so they didn't need nylon screws, but that would require enlarging the frame holes, something that I prefer not to do.