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DCC a tenshodo power bogie - advice please


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I have started a DC Kits 3 coach class 205 DEMU kit purchased second hand that I have had in stock for some years (waiting a lockdown?). It came with a Tenshodo motor bogie which fitted nicely in the DMBS vehicle. It runs well using its own pickups (although I intend to add pickups from the trailing bogie as well) but would not pull the other two vehicles, merely slipping on my 1 in 100 test gradient. This is partly because the trailing vehicle bogie wheels do not turn very freely but also because the motor vehicle was quite light being mainly plastic. To resolve this I used a large lump of steel from a scrap Hornby ex Lime class 73 which is a tight fit in a plasticard box in the luggage/guards section of the vehicle - this does not show when the body is on in most lighting conditions and means the motor will now haul the three coaches up the gradient at a reasonable speed and power consumption.

 

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My query is regarding the possible use of this motor bogie for DCC running. My layout is DC but I would like to run the unit on the clubs Redbridge layout, which is DCC. I have installed a DCC socket from a scrap loco but when I came to look at the power bogie closely I noticed that the bogie pickups seem to be attached directly to the motor, although I could not work out how to get it apart to see exactly how it is configured. Has anyone converted one of these bogies to DCC, and how did they do it please?

 

Tony 

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I  have adapted a Tenshodo to DCC a couple of times. It is a bit fiddly.

 

The need is to cut the brass strips that run on both sides from the wheel pickups to the top of the motor housing. Then the DCC wires (red and black) are soldered to the pickup strips to the decoder  and the orange and grey to the tags on top of the motor. No need to dismantle the bogie. I use a cutting disc in a Dremel, being rather careful.

 

This cutting does leave the brass strips floating about a bit, so the procedure that I ended up doing, is to make the cuts then to glue (I use Gorilla glue) the strips to the sides of the housing. Do make sure that the cut is clean and no stray whiskers bridge the gap.  Allow to go off then start the soldering.

 

One point to note is that I run a DCC only policy with my stock, so have the analogue DC option disabled (via CV29) on all decoders. So I do not know how the Tenshodo might react to DC supplied via the decoder.

 

John

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Take bottom case off of motor housing

remove wheels

pull motor armature out of casing

cut the pickup tabs off and remove the sections that go inside the housing

reinstall/fit back together

 

now solder wire to each side of pickup and the two motor tabs sticking out the top and connect to pcb/decoder.

 

they run better as pairs on DCC ive found, and can obviously pull a lot more. Would defo reccomend fitting a second motor in the other end of the coach and wiring them both in parallel to the same decoder.

 

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Thanks for the replies; both helpful, however I have to confess I became stuck at 'Take bottom off of motor housing'..... I see there is a very small screw in one end, which if removed allows the bottom case to move back and forwards but it cannot seem to actually remove it - what am I doing wrong?

 

As you can see I have not helped matters by already constructing the bogie frame around the motor body (although I can still access the bottom housing)!

 

Regarding the issue of CV29 I had intended to wire the motor through the 8 pin plug and socket I had installed behind the weight so that I could swap the blanking plug I would use on my layout with a chip when running on the club layout.

 

I am sure you are correct about the use of a second motor but as this unit was being built on a budget I could not stretch to that and have already run the 3 coach set on my DC layout, which with the added weight it just about manages with my 1 in 100 gradients and 3' curves (the club layout is flat) so will make do with just having the extra set of pickups on the second DMBS bogie.

 

Tony   

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  • 8 months later...

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