I finished the digital conversion of a Maerklin 3065 V60 class switcher. Not only was this my first attempt of using a motor kit from sb modellbau, but also I'm very happy that I managed to find a way to replace the light bulbs with LEDs, and still have all lights operational without having to resort to dealing with SMD LEDs. As you can see in the photo above, the arrangement of the lights is a bit tricky.
Light package in long hood
I started the lights on the long-hood side of the locomotive to get some experience working inside this very narrow and somewhat shallow hood. Since I'm mounting the LEDs in the shell, I needed a way to disconnect the shell from the chassis, so I built a low-tech connector from header pins.
A 5mm warm-white LED feeds the ditch lights, and a dedicated 3mm warm-white LED feeds the headlight at the cab.
The long hood also houses the decoder
The white, yellow, and blue cable were left just long enough that I can take off the shell and pull the connectors from the header pins.
Short hood light package
The short hood houses the motor, and in particular the flywheel, so space is at a premium here. I decided to route the wires along the insider corners of the shell, as well as mount the 3mm LED into the exhaust block. That required some gentle drilling to make room for the LED. I also had to reposition the 5mm LED in a sub-optimal way to avoid the LED touching the flywheel, which now spins only a few millimeters away from the LED contacts.
LEDs and wiring inside the shell
And that completes the digital conversion of this loco. Things left to do are some paint touch-ups on the shell, and tuning the decoder programming.
This loco comes with a TELEX coupler on each end, which are wired serially to function output 1 of the ESU Lokpilot 3.0 decoder.
Finally, here's a short video that shows the completed locomotive in Talheim. The motor is so quiet now, that the locomotive is almost begging to be equipped with sound.
BUT! ... not here. That gap between the buffer sill and the walkway is not supposed to be there. The motor assembly is too tall and doesn't fit inside the locomotive. I double-checked the instructions and verified that I did all the metal working exactly to plan. Hmmm ...
I added a dab of paint on top of the flywheel, put the chassis on,
and we immediately see the problem: The clear plastic piece conducting light from
the light bulb to the upper headlight is in the way. Then I remembered hearing about that specific problem a few years ago. For now I removed the light conductor from the chassis and everything fits properly.
After installing the NEM 652 plug and the decoder it was time for a short test run on the layout.
I'm very impressed with how quiet the locomotive runs now. There seems to be some occasional binding in the original gears when running very, very slowly in speed step 1. We'll see if I can track that one down. So far, so good.
I really dislike working with Epoxy glue, but this stuff works. Here's another test run of the 260 417. The Maxon motor is now glued down permanently. There is sufficient (but not too much) play in the gears, so that everything runs smoothly. The flywheel on the motor is very effective. Even at medium speed the wheels rotate a couple times when I remove power abruptly.
On to installing the wiring harness with 8 pin NEM 652 plug, relay for remote uncouplers, and fitting the decoder.
The remaining gears and axles of 260 417 are cleaned and oiled. Now I just need to find some quiet time to prepare the epoxy glue and get the motor glued in place.
This is the ubiquitous Maerklin 3065, DB number 260 417-1 a first generation switcher for light and medium duty switching, as well as light transfer freights. This is my next victim for conversion to digital. I'm doing this one differently than all the other conversions so far. The motor in this locomotive is awful and the gears are super-noisy. Two years ago I ordered a re-motor kit from SB Modellbau that fits this locomotive. It consists of a small Maxon DC motor, and adapter gears to fit into the Maerklin drive-train. This promises a much smoother running engine and I heard many good things about the SB Modellbau motor kits.
Before I start...
The only catch is that doing this conversion requires extensive modification of the motor block, thus the kit is labeled as "difficult" on the SB Modellbau Web site. "There is no difficult", I thought and ordered the kit.
I've never done a conversion like this before. You can send the parts to SB Modellbau to have the milling done professionally for a fee, but I wanted to try myself.
Today I worked up the courage to start grinding away the motor block with a cut-off disk in the Dremel and working out the more intricate bits with a milling bit. The zinc metal is relatively soft, so a fresh cut-off disk worked very well. The milling bit is a bit harder to control, but manageable at low speed setting. I used painters tape to keep the metal shavings away from gears and wheels as much as possible.
