USRA 2-10-2 light rebuilt

[Schraddel]

A photo of the underside of the loco with the pick up system and the bad braking gear. Bad because it is not insulated and prone to cause short cirkuits



A closer look. The 0.3mm bronze spring wire was partially insulated with wire insulation. You get it by simply uninsulate a wire of suitable diameter and instead to throw away the insulation, reuse it here.
So some critical points prone to produce short circuits were eliminated.


Both tender trucks also get pick ups. In this case they are of the fully equalized type.

Then all the wiring was soldered and connected.


Like as shown here.
A ESU Lok Pilot Basic was plugged in and the loco was set at first onto the programming rail.
This is a safety device, if there is any wrong connection, or interrputions or a short circuit, my DCC controller (Digitrax Zephyr) will not be able to read the decoder. This will the "magic smoke" kept well inside the decoder.
If you cannot read the decoders adress, first search for the cause(s).
If there is o.k. the controller will read on new cedoders the address 03

Ant then you can put the loco to the test rails.
Try if it responds on address 03.
Running forward and backward according to the choosen direction on the controller?
But before:
Lights working in correct manner?
It lights are working correct to giveb direction, but loco runs reverse you have to change the polarity of the motor by resoldering the wires.

It everything is o.k. here, then you can start test runs.



When i made the first test runnings there was a light bind at everey rotation of the drivers. Especially when the loco moves backwards.
At least if was the first pair of drivers which did not have the correct 90° quartering.
So they were removed from the loco.
One of the drivers was pulled off the axle, the exact 90° quartering was made and the driver refitted onto the axle according NMRA measurement of inner wheel space.

Now the loco runs without any binds and hesitations.
The next steps will be the DCC programming.


Lutz