# K-27 Airwire



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Recently opened up a Bachman K-27 for Airwire, battery, Phoenix. I don't think this could have much more wiring. I know it has been often said to remove the factory wiring for a decoder installation, but with the plug and play socket how would you handle this installation.


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

With Airwire, trace which wires coming from the locomotive go where, clip 'em, and wire them direct to the Airwire and Phoenix. Toss the board. You could wire to the solder pads if you wanted to, but it's such a space hog in there that you don't gain anything from that beyond back-compatibility if you ever remove it. I'm not sure how you'd do the K's optical chuffs to the Phoenix--I'd just rewire with a magnetic switch on the rear axle and be done with it. 

Later, 

K


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

If you want to use airwire, why not get a QSI and plug it in. 

Also, there's plenty of documentation on making the optical chuff work. 

Regards, Greg


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Greg, are you suggesting the QSI terminal board to wire to. Where would I look at the optical chuff information.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I would plug the QSI into the K socket. 

You would have to interface the chuff sensors separately, and probably add the transistor to invert it. 

The qsi will not take the chuff from the socket. 

My suggestion was so that you would not have to rewire the loco, and also you get sound and motor control for less money. 

You also might be really happy with the QSI "autochuff", once set, it will be exactly the same number of chuffs per driver revolution, and you can set it to as many or few chuffs per revolution as you desire. 

Using the onboard bachmann chuff circuitry would allow the chuff to occur at exactly the right place in the piston stroke. The QSI autochuff will give you the right number of chuffs per revolution, but will not be exactly at the perfect "stroke". 

I just don't see rewiring the loco when it has a socket already, and of course you will have more sounds and more control with the QSI, it has 30 sounds. 

Regards, Greg


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

I have seen in the past that it was necessary to remove a component located on some Bachman motors. Is this true in the K-27, installing Air Wire. I was hoping to do this all in the Tender.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have never removed any of the RF suppression stuff on my locos, and I am all DCC... the QSI seems to be perfectly happy. 

10 years ago, DCC decoders were much more sensitive to these things, so maybe that is where this is coming from. It USED to be true. 

Why not try the easy route first Mike? Also, the headlight and backup light connections are reversed from the "Aristo Standard" which the QSI was made for, and I understand that the K-27 download on the QSI site already has the appropriate "reconfiguration" built in. Unfortunately, last time I checked, it was not the latest firmware version... you want a firmware version 7-25.3 or above I believe... 

For some reason it has not been updated on the site... the version there is 7-20-something... so rod clank is missing, and the advanced BEMF parameters are missing... best thing is to get the latest version file, and correct for the reversed lights... if you get stuck, email me for my phone number, I can get/configure what you want... 

Regards, Greg


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

You shouldn't have to remove anything from the K-27 with the QSI. In fact, I don't think the motor on the K-27 has any kind of suppression mounted to it. I think it's all on the dummy plug, so when you remove that for the QSI plug, you remove the filtering. (There's nothing indicated on the wiring diagram that would show any filtering on the locomotive itself, nor do I recall seeing anything. I wasn't looking, though, since things worked smoothly before I even opened up the loco.) I'm trying to remember if I removed the noise filter from the 2-8-0 I did, or if just turning off the BEMF feedback was enough to get it to run smoothly. I had to do that on the 2-6-0, too, but I just removed the noise board at the same time as a matter of course. I'm used to gutting the noise boards anyway, since they've never played well with the RCS controls I used. 

As Greg said, the K-27's lights are backwards from how Aristo wires things, so you've got to reprogram your QSI board so the headlights match the direction of travel. If you've got the QSI CV Manager USB interface and software, this is a snap to do by downloading the updated file from QSI's web site. (I heartily recommended you get this if you're going to go QSI for your fleet.) If you don't have it (and I didn't when I was installing the QSI in the K), here are the CVs you need to set to get things right (excerpted from another topic): 

I've got it programmed now to where the front headlight is dim while in neutral, on full when going forward, and off when going reverse. The rear headlight is dim in neutral only when the direction indicated is reverse, and on full when going in reverse. As soon as you stop and change your direction to forward, the rear light turns off. 

CV 55.70.1 = 6 
CV 55.73.1 = 100 

Then set your dim value to suit. In my case, I set it so it's around half as bright (which is not necessarily half the total allowable value. It will depend on your lights. 

CV 55.70.10 and CV 55.73.10 = 60 

To program these, 

CV 50 = the last number 
CV 49 = the middle number 
CV 55 = the value you want to program. 

So, to program CV 55.70.10, you'd enter: 

CV 50 = 10, CV 49 = 70, CV 55 = 60. 

Note: CV 55.70.# by the book controls the front headlight, but the QSI/Bachmann socket configuration makes that value control the light on the tender. Likewise, CV 55.73.# by the book controls the rear light, but on the loco, it's the front one. Note also that because of this reversal, the "neutral from forward" and "neutral from reverse" bits are similarly reversed. 

"The book" is QSI's downloadable manual for all their DCC systems. http://www.qsisolutions.com/pdf/qua..._4_5_0.pdf. If you're going to program these boards yourself--with or without the software--it's a good thing to have. 

I can also vouch for the auto-chuff being the way to go with controlling the chuff on the K/QSI combination. I forget what the value I ended up using was, but I have axle magnets on my K (Sierra sound), and was doubleheading it with the QSI-equipped K using the auto-chuff, and the cadence was spot on between the two. 

Later, 

K


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

I would like to plug in a QSI. However my coustomer now has Airwire-Phoenix and wants to stay the same.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Mike, if you are game to do the setup as Kevin outlined, l will email you the latest QSI file... The latest firmware allows the BEMF control to be set so that you do not have to think about disabling the BEMF... Disabling BEMF does other things that reduces your feature content. 

As you probably already know (this is mostly for others reading this) all "steam files" contain all sounds, so starting with any steam loco file will allow you to customize it to a specific loco.

On my site, I have listed the K27 "settings", so make these settings in any steam file.

I keep only one of steam, electric, diesel, etc. file on my computer, then customize it to the particular loco. That keeps the confusion and number of files down.

Here's the link that shows what how "K27" sound file is customized. Current version of steam file is 7-30-1, on the site is 7-20-2 I believe.


*http://www.elmassian.com/trains-mai...e-settings* 


Let me know... 

Regards, Greg


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

It is true that the small round pcb mounted on the end of some Bachmann motors needs to be removed. Not because the suppression will not work with RCS ESC's but rather Bachmann have mis-wired many of the pcb's. A 47 µfd electrolytic capacitor was mounted backwards. Mis-wired they will fight the speed controller such that the "Magic Smoke" will likely appear from the pcb's. It is easier to remove them than to try and determine which ones are mis-wired. 

The motor "noise" suppression pcb's on the motors were deleted for the K-27 and subsequent locos. It is interesting to note that they are back for the new Thomas although they no longer use electrolytic capacitors. 
Once the dummy pcb is removed from the K-27 there is no suppression fitted to the motor.


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