Lima Railcar: fitting extra pickups to the rear bogie

[PAL]

Would any member be kind enought to provide, or indicate where I can find,  idiot-proof instructions for an electrical simpleton who wants to fit extra pickups to the rear bogie of a Lima railcar? I gather from previous threads that this is the single most useful modification you can make to improve the running of this well-loved but creaky model. My soldering is OK but I'm totally clueless about the wiring involved, and how to make and fit pickups. Photos would be a huge help.

 

[DCB]

Not sure additional pickups are that useful on the trailing bogie, fitting non traction tyre wheels to the power bogie with pickups would probably be more effective, but for a proper job both additional pickups on the power bogie and converting the trailing bogie to take pin point bearings soldered to pickups with split axle wheel sets would be good.  In my experience Wiper pickups never seen to work on non powered axles but I have had good results from wipers bearing on the journals on Bachmann split axle wheel sets, but not as free running as pin point bearings used as pickups

[stewartingram]

My Lima railcars have pickups on all wheels of all cars.

!st thing is a sleeper strip/copperclad paxolin stuck on to the underside of the bogie, above the axles. (2 strips actually, 1 for each side). A piece of nickel silver wire ** is used to form the pickup to each wheel on that side, soldered to the strip in the centre.

(** in my case, being an ex-Hornby repair agent, I have a lot of Triang "omega loop" pickups, but plain wire is as good).

 

Wiring is simple. As built wiring is basically 1 wire from a brush to one side of the car(A); with another wire to the other side (B). In practice, the (B) side is tahen to a clip on the trailing bogie which is electrically connected to the (B) side.

Usually I standardise on the copperclad method, removing the wiring from the retaining clip, however this clip is still needed to hold the bogie in place.

So all (A) pickups are wired to the brush on one side; all (B) pickups to the other one.

To transfer to another car, a short piece of copperclad, gapped in the centre, is stuck across  the underside of the coach. All (A) wires end up here (possible also on a 3-car to do both ends). The (B) wires are soldered to the copper the other side of the gap.

So, to recap, with the whole train upside down, all wires to one side of the wheels are connected together.

A short piece of wire is soldered across between coaches to either side of the short gapped copperclads on each coach..

 

I chop off the Lima couplings and use brass wire instead; a hook on one coach and a loop on the other, again soldered to another (non-electrical!) piece of copperclad under the floor.

 

As always, the more pickups you have, the more reliability.

 

More difficult to explain than do, I really must take some pics!

 

Stewart

[6892 Oakhill Grange]

My method was similar to Stewarts. I stuck an off cut of copper lad sleeper under each bogie and used a length of 0.45mm phosphor bronze wire to put rim scratching pickups on each wheel on one side. I relied on the Lima pickup for the other side and the ultrascale wheels conveniently allowed for that. I ran wires directly from the pickup pad to the motor brush springs.

 

I doubt the wire used in critical Ian Rice talks about 0.33mm brass and Tony Wright uses 0.45mm Nickel silver.

 

All in all it was very straightforward.

 

Unfortunately the project was abandoned for many other reasons; clicking gear train, bowed roof, And insufficient 0.3mm drills in the known universe to drill all the door handle, grab rail and wiper holes required. Oh wrong period as well.

 

Oakhill

[PAL]

Stewart and Oakhill

 

Thanks so much for your exemplary how-to notes; they're just the job, and I feel confident about the soldering involved. I'll try different thicknesses and types of wire for springiness; the best I've ever seen are those on my old Hornby Dublo 4MT 2-6-4.

[Barry Ten]

My method was similar to Stewarts. I stuck an off cut of copper lad sleeper under each bogie and used a length of 0.45mm phosphor bronze wire to put rim scratching pickups on each wheel on one side. I relied on the Lima pickup for the other side and the ultrascale wheels conveniently allowed for that. I ran wires directly from the pickup pad to the motor brush springs.

 

I doubt the wire used in critical Ian Rice talks about 0.33mm brass and Tony Wright uses 0.45mm Nickel silver.

 

 

 

Snap as that's also what I did on my railcar, with ultrascale wheels. Generally I try to use 0.45 nickel silver, but if pushed, brass handrail wire seems to work equally well.