Full refurbishment of Bachmann's DMUs (158/159/166/170)

[Rayray]

This may not be a totally new topic.

Several years ago, I ordered a pre-owned Class 170 from Hattons with decoder fitted by them. It was working, but not as a perfect job as I originally expected...

Soldering decoders on these DMUs could be painful, as you will have a bunch of wires, big components flying everywhere...

Back in the early 2000, these types of DMUs  were popularly sold everywhere in the world, by Bachmann local dealers. 

Among our fan group, we currently have about 19 in our fleet, and almost nobody was bothered to do the DCC process on these antiques...

 

End of last year while I was travelling, I happened to meet an electrical engineer (fan) who used to do design works in a model railroad company. We talked about this issue, and that conversation turned into something we longed for years. He helped us to develop a functional PCB for our fan group to refurbish these old DMUs to be "almost as the current standard".

 

They support 21MTC decoders, and as little as 4 wires to do the power pickups and headlights the train cars are ready to go.

Furthermore, it actually provided amplified AUX3-4 for the day and night headlights, not to mention interior illuminations! After I did a test installation, I was astonished that these DMUs were designed to be upgraded (by Bachmann), but never made to its hay day.

 

Here I would like to share some results:

Class 170 on its test run: 

 

Class 170 interior (T car)

 

Class 170 (M car) Installation. The motor does not bother too much.

 

The installation of the T car

 

Similar results on other "relatives": Class 158 and 166. (I was going to try to open the front and totally swap the LEDs but it was glued too well)

 

 

 

 

 

I know Bachmann already released the new 158 and 159, stunning model!

But I would like to share the idea----if you do NOT want to trade 3 of your old beloved DMUs for a new one, or wait another 10 years before Bachmann completely renews their product line, there is something you could do! These are better than you expected. Even the real railroad company refurbished their fleet, why not you give a try?

 

I have seen that Hattons and quite a lot of dealers already offer DCC fitting in the traditional way, and a lot of you fans also do the wire-by-wire strategy.

We came up to this and wanted to simplify all the process, and if any day we wanna do a sound upgrade, all we need is to swap the decoder! 

 

Hope this post provides you more ideas~.

[tractor_37260]

Very interesting.  Are these circuit boards available to purchase for the original Bach 158's?

TIA

 

 

[Rayray]

1 hour ago, tractor_37260 said:

Very interesting.  Are these circuit boards available to purchase for the original Bach 158's?

TIA

 

 

Originally these were just made for our fleet, not to the general public and in a very small quantity.

But if you are interested, please message me and I will ask if they have any spare sets left.