At the corner of Corona Avenue, I had roughly a six-inch gap to fill between the street and the primary industry on that block. I didn’t want anything too over the top and something that blended into the neighboring structure. For the side with the tagging on it, I used an image from my trip to LA. For the side with the door, I snatched a Google Streetview screenshot from a building a block away. The other two sides can’t be seen so were left blank. The core was made from .060″ styrene with openings cut out for the windows and doors in order to provide noticeable depth. It was simple enough to then laminate the two photos onto the core and glue the doors and windows into the relief openings. Downspouts were added for additional standoff relief. I no longer photoshop out the shadows in the door wells or from surrounding guy wires because I’ve found that leaving them in creates added contrast.
Two details to note in the above shot. The windows were added last. The laminate was printed on glossy photo paper and then dulled with Dullcote. After the Dullcote application, I then took the windows, also printed on glossy photo paper (but with NO Dullcote applied) and inserted them into the window depressions. The glossiness of the window images gives them a very transparent look.
The downspouts are from Micro Engineering. In the real world, the graffiti would have been applied over the downspout. How do you do that, though? It ended up being much simpler than I expected. I just took another photo and cut a thin strip of the photo where the prototype downspout was and glued it onto the Micro Engineering downspout.
Chipping away at the details on LAJ CF-7 #2619….. Cut levers from an Athearn Genesis F unit, air hose, and MU stand. The prototype only had two stacks so I shaved two of the four stacks off.
Since the last post, I’ve simply spent some time running and breaking in the re-powered CF-7 on my Downtown Spur layout. I don’t know how long the donor Kato mechanism was sitting in the box (over a decade maybe?), but it has really smoothed out to be a silky smooth runner after logging some run time. The next order of the day was adding ditch lights. The bulbs are of the 1.5v variety from Miniatronics, the light castings from Details West. Making the connections was easy enough, but the challenge continues to be cable and wire management. Lots of “stuff” to fit under the shell and it has to be in a way that there is no binding with moving parts. It took over an hour of trial, error, and careful wire re-positioning to finally get the shell seated back on the chassis. My enthusiasm for taking it off again at this point to install working beacon wiring has diminished to pretty much zero!
Unlike my CSX ditch lights, which come on and flash when you sound the horn, from watching YouTube videos it appears the LAJ prototype ditch lights are on all of the time. I put a call into Norm at TCS tech support to confirm the correct solder points for the bulbs. He then also had me set CV35 and CV36 to “3” so they are constantly on with the headlights. Next, working from the bottom I drilled holes for the bulbs and threaded them up through the pilot walkway. Fortunately, the Athearn frame has a gap that makes threading the wires through a relatively easy task. Once the bulbs were threaded through and sitting loosely in position, I simply slipped the Details West ditch lights down over the bulbs from above and secured them with a dab of CA.
To summarize this job, ninety-five percent of the work was wire management. The wiring and light installation was pretty easy.
Sort of like a heart transplant…only harder. Pile 1 came out of the Athearn unit, Pile 2 is the packaging of the parts that went back in.
Adding A Kato Drive Train and Wow Decoder to an Athearn CF-7
Well, that was a process (or, in terms my less refined readers can understand…a major pain in the ass) but in the end entirely worth it. The CF-7 now houses an upgraded Kato drive and TCS Wow decoder. I’m happy. Essentially the major surgery involved two steps, mechanical and control, with the control side of things ending up being the easier of the two.
I’d been curious about the TCS Wow decoders and decided to take a flyer on them for this project. To say I’m impressed is an understatement. Wow is right! The sound is richer and more vibrant than any decoder I’ve used previously. The keep alive is great but a little unnerving until you get used to it. If you take your loco. off the layout and set it on your desk it keeps running until the capacitors discharge! The major surprise, however, was the motor control. The Athearn RTR/Blue boxes have a low cost/mediocre drive train. Before getting into the major surgery of the drive train replacement I tested the Wow system by clipping it into the existing Athearn drive train (TCS provides an excellent online photo tutorial BTW. Perfectly engineered fit. Super simple ten-minute install). I couldn’t believe how much the back emf smoothed things out. I seriously considered forgoing the drive train replacement. You may want to as well. However, I’d already purchased a donor locomotive with the Kato drive so couldn’t leave well enough alone. Half way through I was wishing I had!
The mechanical end (replacing the drive with that from Kato) proved to be more daunting. As a starting point, I used Richard New’s excellent tutorial on RMweb. That would only take me so far because the dimensions of the Wow decoder, with the attendant capacitors and motherboard, were much larger than which was used in Richard’s example. I also had a speaker taking up additional room. On top of that, the Wow decoder is precisely engineered for the configuration of an Athearn motor. The Kato unit is entirely different. A fair bit of surgery and wandering off the beaten path ensued. I swear to God, Norm at TCS tech support is the most patient human to walk the face of the earth. He talked me through the necessary changes and revisions in soldering points, all of which worked perfectly. There are so many wires to contend with between truck pick ups, motor pick ups, speaker wires, and headlights. Wire management becomes an issue. I also had to do a lot of careful shifting around to position the relatively large decoder so it wouldn’t interfere with the speaker directly above it. In the end, I made small “zip” ties out of electrical tape and shims from styrene to keep things organized and positioned.
The second problem that arose was keeping the drive train aligned. Richard was correct in saying the Kato trucks and motor fall right into place in the Athearn frame. However, the motor needs to shimmed up .060″ with a styrene pad for the shaft to align with the trucks. The motor cradle is also made of soft plastic. Add the two together and it took a lot of work to align the shaft vertically, horizontally, and secure them given the soft plastic foundations of the cradles and shim. The spacer renders the motor mounting screws too short so I had to go The Home Depot and pick up some number 4 half inch long replacements. After two full days, over two weekends, it all sorted out in the end. I now have an ultra smooth runner with excellent truck pick up, great sound, keep alive, and a decoder with the capacity for immense tuning capabilities and features.
Finally, a call out to my blog followers. The next project is intalling a working Santa Fe style roof beacon/gyralight. If any of you have experience with doing this effectively I’d love to hear from you.
