New year, new projects! Time for a new article about my Powerline modes T-class. I have performed quite a lot of work on that model in 2024. I initialy started by swaping the factory installed decoder for a Tsunami. That decoder stopped working after a month, so I had to install an ESU decoder instead.
I later encounterd som wireing issues, so I decided to rewire the decoder installation. It has since then worked fine as long as the wheels and tracks have been clean. But there are some minor issues with the locomotive that I would like to fix.
I have now been able to adress all of the issues to my satisfaction. Let's have a look at the steps I did to achive that.
I used the following tools for the model improvements.
Please note that I used a smaler plier than what is shown in the above list. The tip activator is only needed if the solder doesn't stick to your soldering iron. A 3D printer where also used for creating some of the necessary parts.
None of my rolling stock or other locomotives have knuckler couplings. There is therefor no rolling stock that can be used with my T-class. I did purchase some adapter couplings from Kadee that where NEM pocket compatible for use with my rolling stock. There where however some issues with those couplings.
All of those factors made adapter couplings a poor choice. I therefor decided to continue researching the posibillity of swaping the coupling on the locomotive. I where unable to find any comercial available products, but I stumbled across another soulution. Someone have created a 3D model of an American-style pocket to NEM-pocket! That model is availbe from Thingiverse.
I do not own a 3D printer unfortunately, but I know someone with access to several different 3D printers. I therefor asked if he could print some couplings for me. The result is shown in the images bellow.
The initial tests looks promising. There are however a few things to be aware of.
The couplings do otherwise work great so far, so I would say that the 3D printed couplings is worth it. The couplings where printet using black filament (I think it was PLA), so no painting necessary. I could have sanded them a bit to make them look a bit better, but I decided against it.
The soulution to the next problem is to install a condensator that will provide power to the locomotive for a few seconds over problematic sections of track. There are two options for this. One is to use a third-party component and the other one is to use an ESU powerpack. I decied to use an ESU powerpack, more specificly the powerpack mini. The reason for that is that the powerpack can easly be disabled if needed.
Why is it beneficial to be able to disable the condensator? The reason for that is sound programming. Programming sound to an ESU decoder with a condensator connected and active is destructive.
But enogh about choice of condensator! Lets look at how I installed it instead. I started the installation by removing the shell from the locomotive. There are a total of 6 screws on the underside that needs to be unscrewed. Note that there are different lengths on some of the screws. The shell can then be gently removed by jiggling it upwards.
The next step in installing an ESU powerpack is to remove the heat-protection covering the decoder connector and powerpack terminals. Bellow is a picture showing the decoder after disconnecting it from the socket.
I then removed the decoder from the locomotive and I also removed the double-sided tape that held the decoder in place. The next step is to solder on the powerpack wires to the solder terminals as shown in the included (german) manual.
Make sure to shorten down the wires to fit into your locomotive. Make sure you do not cut it to short either. Also note that its beneficial to have a smal soldering iron. Mine is a bit to large, making the soldering a little bit more challenging. That results in suboptimal soldering, but it have so far worked fine for me.
I originally installed only one speaker in the engine. The problem with that was that the sound was a little bit to low for my liking. I therefor decided to install an additional speaker into the locomotive. I did some measurments with a caliper to make sure I where able to fit an additional loudspeaker together with the powerpack.
I then went ahead an ordered an additional speaker. The speaker I ordered was a sugar cube speaker similar to the existing one.
The speaker where wired in series with the existing speaker in accordance with the decoder manual. Make sure to always place some type of object on top of your speaker when soldering! Failing to do so might result in the speaker magnet attaching to your soldering iron thus destroying the speaker! I used the back of my screwdriver to hold down the speaker.
It was now time to assemble the locomotive again. I initially installed the components like shown in the bellow picture.
That didn't work. The shell simply wouldn't fit due to the height of the speakers. I therefor had to redo the component placement. I started by finding a new position for the powerpack. The model originaly comes with condensators fitted under the decoder. The great thing about the Powerpack mini is that it will fit in the compartment designed for those condenstors as shown in the bellow picture.
I ended up placing the component in the following order (from front to back): Decoder, speaker, powerpack, speaker. That arrangement made it possible to fit the shell again. Office tape where used to make sure no wires would be squezed when attaching the shell. The decoder where secured into place with double-sided tape.
It was time to test the newly installed components. The first thing I noticed right away was that the powerpack wasn't working at all. I therefor had to go back to the manual to see if I had missed any steps. I had to use a manual from the Internet as I was unable to understand it in german (I had german as a subject in school, but that is way to long ago).
Turned out that the powerpack was disabled by deafault in the decoder configuration. I therefor had to change some CVs in order to enable the powerpack. The first two CV changes where to set CV 31 to 16 and CV 32 to 0 in that order. That enables the PowerPackControl function. The next CV to set depends on the type of ESU decoder. The decoder I have in this model (Loksound 5 micro) must have the CV 323 set to 31. That maps the mentiond function to AUX7.
The powerpack started working after enabling the mentioned function. My impressions of the powerpack so far is that it works great. There are however one thing that its important to be aware of. The powerpack won't provide the same voltage and current to the lights and engine during power loss. That means that the lights will flicker and the engine will stutter a bit when traversing bad track.
The sound where also better now, but still not satisfactory. I therefor decided to revist the volume settings on my decoder. I then found out that the master volume was set to 64 and faded volume to 0. I remembered that I did that due to issues with the sound quality when using one speaker. I ended up changing the master volume to 192, while i set the faded volume to 64. The result where much better sound quality and volume. I am now satisfied with the sound quality on the model.
Superspeed500 2025
Date: 20 January 2025