Trainorama S Class Decoder Install and Gear Change.

    Trainorama released the first models of the Victorian Railways and  V/Line S class locomotives back in November 2009, along with a Freight Australia liveried unit in the December of the same year. Trainorama do not offer DCC or sound in their models but they are fitted with a board and an 8 pin socket, with later runs able to except 21 pin decoders. The model numbers from observations were:

    S 300, S 301, S 303, S 306, S 311, S 312, S 313, S 315 and S 317 in VR blue and yellow.

    S 309 and S 310 in V/Line.

    S 303 in Freight Australia.

    Of which I had ordered S 301 and S 315 in VR blue and yellow and S 309 and S 310 in V/Line.

    Trainorama then finally released a second run in 2017 with new numbers.

    S 304, S 305 and S 313 in VR blue and yellow and S 308 and S 312 in V/Line, with these five units on the order forms. Once the models arrived, extra units S 300, S 302 and S 311 were available in West Coast Railway livery and S 306 and S 317 in V/Line were also available online.

    I did not purchase any models from the second run.

    Trainorama then announced another re-run which would be the third, due the end of 2022, with S 300, S 302, S 307, S 308, S 309, S 314 and S 316 in VR blue and yellow, S 310, S 313 and S317 in the V/Line livery and S 301 in Freight Australia livery, S 306 in Pacific National livery and S 311 in CFCLA livery. This was then expanded to include S 300 in CFCLA livery, S 317 SSR yellow and grey livery and also S 317 in SSR yellow and black livery. The original pre-order price was $270 each, this has now increased to $335 per loco. These units are now due 2026, probably towards the middle of the year. I have preordered seven models.

    As these units are not DCC or sound equipped I added an ESU LokSound V5 58420 model decoder with an eight pin plug. 

    The above image shows S 301 with the body shell removed and the original speakers at each end, eight pin dummy board and the two magnetic read switches to control the headlights.

    The eight pin dummy plug is removed and the decoder hardwired into the model, A DCCSound pair of speakers replaced the originally fitted speakers and then an S class sound project from DCCSound was downloaded to the decoder along with my usual tweaks to sound and bass levels and functional light outputs.

    I kept the original LEDs front and rear and installed a 2.2kOhm resister is series with each light output and also fitted a small piece of heat shrink to each LED to reduce the amount of light bleed.

    The above image shows the heat shrink applied to the LEDs, the in-series resistor, aftermarket speakers, the ESU LokSound decoder and the ESU power pack. The original board has had most of the large components flush cut off the board to allow the decoder and power pack to be installed on top. I did refit the drivers seats after removing the crew from them, but didn't take a photo...

    All up with the decoder, speakers, sound file and power pack the cost was $320.85 on top of the original purchase price of the Trainorama S class S 301 model of $295.00. 

    Upon testing of the model it was noticed that the unit had the infamous split gears on the drive axles, so these were subsequently replaced as well and then the model run in on the rolling road.

Picture shows the split shafts of the gears.

Below is a video showing the binding action of the split axles as they run before replacement.

Enjoy!

Auscision's First Run V/Line N Class Decoder Install.

    It has been a bit of time between posts, account problems and some health recovery has seen several work fronts come to a stand, which are only now starting to get back into seeing some action.

    The V/Line N class HO scale model was released by Auscision back in late 2010 with a pre-delivery price of $275 and an after delivery price of $295. A re-run is due very soon which also now includes built in sound, with the pre-order for DC still at $295 and DCC sound at $425 and includes a couple of extra liveries.

    Back in 2010 the models were only 'DCC Ready' with a motherboard and an 8 pin socket for a decoder to be installed, but the markers were operated with the headlights.

    

    I chose to install an ESU LokSound V5 58420 decoder in both my conversions along with the DCCSound sound project file and some DCCSound speakers. I also installed a homemade keep alive which slides in between the radiator grills inside the hood body. Hard wiring was chosen to allow the separation of the marker lights from the headlights.

    DCCSound have an easy to follow guide on the install process which can be found on their webpage at: https://www.dccsound.com/post/n-class-by-auscision

    First up, which such an old, never opened model, the poor quality plastic wrap had deteriorated quite badly and was also stuck to the plastic body of the models in several spots.

The poor quality plastic film which the model comes wrapped in, it has been cocooned in this for nearly 15 years.

    Here the warp has stuck to the hood around the exhaust outlet and needs a bit of effort to release it.

    

On one model it also stuck to both sides of the fuel tank, I am still mucking around trying to remove it.

    With the body removed and the cabs now free, the motherboard is removed, I also removed both crew from each cab, and the wiring replaced on the bogie pickups and decoder wired direct to the motor.

    Also the keep alive series connected super caps were slid into the hood with the radiator grill panels providing some support.

    The green and red wires, in the red rectangle, were for the headlight switch and will be used to switch the keep alive on and off to allow programming via a programming track. The DCCSound speaker is also installed at the No.1 end.

    Bogie stripped down to allow the replacement of the track pickup wires to run back to the decoder.

    Above image shows No. 1 end cab refitted and lighting now wired across the top of the speaker  which is wired 'in phase' with the decoder sitting on top of the motor plate. The green and red headlight switch wires are used to switch the keep alive which is soldered onto the uncovered pads on the top left of the decoder. The No. 2 end was completed in a similar fashion.

    My two first run N class units are now equipped to operate with the newer additions to the N class roster when the re-run models arrive, some time in October 2025.

Trainorama SAR 930 class gets a sound decoder.

    A second run Trainorama 930 class unit, 930, in South Australian Railways maroon and silver with the reflective side panels. These second run models were delivered in September 2021 for $250 per locomotive and were provided with a DCC ready 21 pin motherboard.

    With the body removed, we remove the original speakers, dummy plug and of course the crew, but only from one end as 930 is a single ended unit.

The void at the rear of the loco where the No.2 driving position would be is a good size for a homemade stay alive with six super caps.

    With the original speakers removed, a DCCSound speaker with dual drivers is installed at the No.1 end behind the driving cab and wired to the motherboard speaker pads.

    Underneath there is a three pole switch, one of the poles is modified to allow the switching of the keep alive and an extra wire is fed down through the chassis to connect the U+ from the decoder for the stay alive. This allows for the isolation of the stay alive to allow programming of the deocder.

Speakers installed, decoder fitted and stay alive in the rear held in place with a blob of hot glue.

    On the programming track being configured and then tested.

First run Powerline T class decoder swap, T 367 in Victorian Railways livery.

    I have had this 'first run' Powerline low nose Victorian Railways T class, T 367, since 2007 when they first came out and it has been hiding in its original packaging since that time and only just came out to see the light of day over the weekend, along with another Powerline T class, a V/Line high nose T, see earlier post.

    They came with a simple DCC decoder and were only $260 each back in 2007 but had a switch under the hood to change between DCC and DC mode.

    Fast forward to today, and I am finally getting close to having a functional layout and have started the huge task of checking the operation and functionality of my collection. The V/Line T proved no issue and worked and operated in the expected way via JMRI and the ProCab PowerPro setup, as per an earlier blog post.

    However, this low nose T whilst being read by JMRI would not respond to commands and was unable to be reset in the usual CV8=8 way. So, I decided to replace the OEM decoder with a DCCconcepts Zen decoder, model Z218, which I have had sitting in the parts draws since 2016.

    The body is removed by first removing the couplers and draft boxes [green circled], which are very tight in the pilot cut out, then the four body screws, two at each end [red circles]. There are no handrails bridging the chassis / body, so it makes for a pretty simple separation. However, the LEDs will jam at each end on the pilots when pulling the chassis out of the body.

    As the old type 'direct' decoder was being replaced I also replaced the power pickups off the bogies and also the leads off of the OEM LED block as these now had to reach to a different location within the body to regain connectivity. The wires came from stripping an old PC USB mouse cable down to individual wires and was of a suitable size for the new pickups.

    The bogies are easy to remove from the chassis once the wires are removed from the push on connection covers used on these 'direct' style decoders and simply push in one side of the lug and the bogie comes out freely with the drive shaft. Put the drive shaft to one side and then remove the bogie pivot and seating cap with a little force these will pop out without the need to remove the bogie coupling from the top of the gear tower. But, if your soldering skills are still being developed, you may want to strip the bogie down to reduce the heat damage from soldering on new wires to the bogie power pickup.

    The input drive worm gear is the red circle, this can be removed from the tower buy simply splitting the tower case by the clip together nature of it. Side frames and screws are in the aqua circles, and these are removed for the bogie pivot which is the yellow circle. The bottom plate is the green circle and this also clips off. These are very simple bogies to work on, strip down or reassemble.

    Partially reassembled bogie with the new longer pickup wires soldered on and the pivot reinstalled.

    The original decoder removed, and the replacement DCCconcepts Zen Z218 decoder and small keep alive was the last couple of wires are soldered to the plug harness.

    As the image shows, fitting in the Zen decoder and Keep-Alive is easy with the size comapared to the original installed decoder, and there is still enough room for a speak if you wanted to install a sound decoder. The only changes I made to the decoder function were wiring the red marker lights for each end off of Function 3 for the front red markers, and Function 4 for the rear red markers. The headlight remained directional.

    T 367 is now ready to join the roster with functional lights and power as a lead or trailing unit in a consist. Project time was about two hours to changeover the decoder.