# DCC install in a Bachmann Annie



## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

I'm about to embark on what the title says.

This is a new "annie," and the Titan "Large Scale O/G" has stereo sound capabilities.

I've only done one DCC install, and this one looks to be more difficult. I've looked briefly through George Strayer's tips, but they seem to be addressing older locos, not quite sure. 

http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips1/big_hauler_tips.html#dcc

Any suggestions on instructional pages or videos?

Thanks,
Cliff

[edit: I'm having trouble getting the boiler off, and I don't want to break any of the nice detailing on this, or needlessly disassemble things I shouldn't ...]


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

I did my Annie and found the mechanical chuff was somehow not isolated in my engine, so I went with BEMF instead of a real input.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks Dan, I'll keep that in mind as I get into the chuff. Never done chuff.

I tried more to find disassembly info, no joy. But after more flashlight work I saw the two final screws that were hanging things up. 

Here's the loco finally apart. 











To get to that stage, and since this wasn't straightforward at all (for me at least), I'll elaborate for the benefit of others in the same boat.

There are seven screws involved, all long and plated, 










Here's their holes. This was clearer than the underside shot, where the screw heads would be.










This is all the small screws and bits. In case you're curios, the tray held mini wrapped hot dogs. Need to get more of them...










Except for the 2 pilot screws, I didn't remove any short black screws from beneath the chassis, including those in the center of the motor block, and that holding the pilot truck. Here's 4 more not to remove:










I cut the wires to the headlight and reverse light (on the tender), but left all others intact for now. I also removed the weight block. Here's the loose bits:










The pipes and handrails in the photo were either holding the chassis and boiler together, or were otherwise hanging in a vulnerable position. They pull from their holes with a little gentle tugging. I can tell these are going to be fun to get back in.

Here is the disemboweled patient. Click on the pic for a larger image.










Cheers,
===>Cliffy


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Dan, I looked into the chuff, and read that in this version of annie the contacts are isolated (from what I've read in Bachmann forum posts, earlier contacts weren't).

I wanted to see for myself. Three more screws and the bottom of the chassis comes off.










Here's the contacts. I was pleased to see that the two revolving switch-strips are mounted on an insulated barrel.










I did a continuity check, and confirmed that no drive wheels communicate with the chuff contacts.

The "sound" jack at the back are wired to these chuff contacts, and the slider switch there breaks that circuit. 

Now comes the big choice of where to put the DCC/sound cards. Tons of tender room.

From Tony's helpful article, I read that the rear lights are wired to the motor.
http://forums.mylargescale.com/40-r...19-easy-peasy-bachmann-annie-battery-r-c.html

[After thinking about it more, I edited these wire pair lists / options]

So if the card is in the tender...
- Re-use the "light" jack for the motor wires
- Re-use the chuff jack as such
- Add new jack one going to the headlight
- Add new jack for rail power pickup
- Add new jack for (optional) smoke...

If the card is in the boiler...
- Re-purpose the rear light jack (new) for tender power pickups (see next post)
- Re-purpose the chuff jack for the (in-tender) speaker
- Add new jack for the rear light (now controlled by the DCC card)

We'll see, still trying to figure it out...
[edit: but it's seeming clearer...]

===>Cliffy


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

I was disappointed to see that the new annie still doesn't have tender wheel pickups. So I'm swapping the trucks with a (fairly dead) LGB mogul tender's. I'll repaint the truck frames at some later date when I do the lettering on the loco.

BM on the left, LGB on the right. 










Also, I like to be able to disconnect things, so here's the LGB trucks with new JST jacks.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Now to the next issue, connections between tender and loco. 

Mating the stock connectors on the terminals under the cab, there is a lot of stress on the latter. Adding a third one like this seems iffy. 










I'd rather re-do the whole thing for a 6- or 8- conductor molex pair. But the two stock jacks are there, and I only need one more, and I don't have the molex. So for now, I'll try the simpler route.

The third cable (for the rear light) is a pre-made-up JST jack. I stripped the stock heat shrink from both the stock cables, and added thinner heat-shrink on all three for the first 1.5 inches. Then I bundled all six wires in a common heatshrink as they routed into the tender's sill, and then up above the tender deck. This pic shows the arrangement, with a wire tie as a strain relief behind the tender sill.










What I was trying to do in all this was to make a sort of flex/hinge point on the bundle, at two locations: upon exiting the tender sill, and at the center (over the coupler). Here's the result.










Still too much stress on that green jack. And I'm not sure how the new cab-side jack will behave, gotta make sure it won't disappear into the under-cab area. And that switch in the middle won't be used, so that whole area is asking for rework...I should remove that board and revert to the 6-con molex... 

===>Cliffy


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

I've next been figuring out the nest of wiring in the loco. It occurred to me that the first thing to de-confuse was the screw-spade connections near the motor, seen in an earlier pic. After removing the chassis lower cover again, I took the screws out and pulled the wires through. After that, things seemed lots more straightforward, seeing that those things will no longer be connected. The screwdriver is pointing to one of the posts upon which the screw and wire spade connectors was fastened.










After that, the wires from the driver axle pickups dangled free. These no longer needed the "connectors" directly at the pickup strips, since they were going to be connected topside by other disconnectable means. Since the connectors were broken by the time I had (carefully) removed the chassis lower cover the first time, and seemed like iffy connections in the future, I removed the remnants of the "connectors" and soldered the wires in place.










Here's the loco chassis, as of this moment. Going clockwise, here's the wiring elements.

- Headlight and extended wires (loose)
- Smoke switch / terminals (loose)
- Motor leads (with spades still attached)
- Rail power leads (the wires I just soldered to the pickup posts)
- Chuff wires (no modification)
- Rail power wires to jack (with spades still attached; used to connect directly to the motor and driver pickups, but now will talk to the new tender power pickups)










Here's the tender chassis, same intro:

- Speaker cable (which will be under the cab, and stay with the loco)
- Speaker / power / light jacks as described earlier
- Pair of wires coming up through the deck from the front truck
- Wires coming from the cab jacks: rail power, speaker, rev light
- Stock speaker
- Pair of wires coming up through the deck from the rear truck
- Reverse light (with extended wires, loose)










Well, that's about it for today, thanks for looking.

===>Cliffy


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## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

Cliffy,

Thanks for posting this. 

FYI the images in your last post are not showing.

Mike


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Cliff, my Annie only had the short when running, it was intermittent. Never caught it with a meter, but BEMF was the easy fix.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

> Still too much stress on that green jack.


Cliffy, those tender wires are known for not being very flexible. I'd replace them with something better.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

MJSavage said:


> Cliffy,
> 
> Thanks for posting this.
> 
> ...



Thanks for pointing that out Mike. Are they showing up now?


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Dan Pierce said:


> Cliff, my Annie only had the short when running, it was intermittent. Never caught it with a meter, but BEMF was the easy fix.



Dan, so it shorted even with the insulated strips-screwed-over-the-barrel contactor?


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Pete Thornton said:


> Cliffy, those tender wires are known for not being very flexible. I'd replace them with something better.


Thanks for the data point Pete, you put me over the decision-edge.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

OK, about those connections between tender and engine. Summary of concerns:

Strike one: 3 cables to mate up (and come loose)
Strike two: at least one of the built-in jacks will most likely give way
Strike three: the switch on the board isn't being used

So, it seems to me like I need to pull the connector board, and get a 6- or 8-conductor cable with jacks made up. Like a data extension cord cut in half. Need to poke around... I'd like 8 conductors, because the sound system supports stereo speakers, so that would allow the 2nd speaker in the tender. 

The cable(s) will never look like brake hoses. So mechanically, I think it might be better to run a cable at tender deck level (and not go under the deck and back up), at the centerline (vs. the big lateral jog). Need to make sure there's some longitudinal give, which that jog permitted somewhat. 

It would be nice to lift up the tender load and access the connector there, from above. We'll see. 

The tender eventually needs to be aesthetically overhauled for oil, so maybe I can hide the larger cable with a little platform or something, and locate the connector beneath the future oil tank top (which is now "coal."


[edit: I measured the existing BM wires and they seem to be #26 awg. I found an 8-conductor mini-din extension cord (MXF), with #26 wires, so I'll probably give that a whirl.


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## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

CliffyJ said:


> Thanks for pointing that out Mike. Are they showing up now?


No they aren't. When I right click and select "Open in new tab" it says "Invalid Attachment Specified"

All other posts with attachments are showing properly. This issue seems to be only with post #7.

Mike


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

> The cable(s) will never look like brake hoses.


Well, maybe not (do they have brake hoses between engine and tender?) I thought they were usually water hoses, and having one each side [i.e. one cable each side, with 3 or 4 conductors each] could be quite prototypical.











These water pipes could hide all sorts of electrics!


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks again Mike, I'll redo them completely and we'll see what happens. (I can see them, so it's a bit of a poke it the dark).
[edit: I just did so; any better now?]

Ah, yes Pete, the water line! Nice and fat, haha! There must be an air line as well though, because the compressor's in the engine.
But I get your point, they can look like hoses... and your water line does come from the side.


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

Did the V&T period your modeling use air brakes on cars?

SD


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## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

CliffyJ said:


> Thanks again Mike, I'll redo them completely and we'll see what happens. (I can see them, so it's a bit of a poke it the dark).
> [edit: I just did so; any better now?]
> 
> Ah, yes Pete, the water line! Nice and fat, haha! There must be an air line as well though, because the compressor's in the engine.
> But I get your point, they can look like hoses... and your water line does come from the side.


That fixed it!


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

SD90WLMT said:


> Did the V&T period your modeling use air brakes on cars?
> 
> SD


Er, SD - he's wiring a Bachmann Annie. I picked that pic as it shows the water pipes.


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

Thanks Pete.. The Annie is still running under V&T tho..
Which came first? 

SD


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Hi Dirk,

Since the V&T had so few types of locos, I'm modeling all its eras. So yes, they used air brakes later. This annie will eventually be the #25.

Cliff


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

For the connection with the tender, I ordered a mini-din 8-pin/wire extension cord, having #26 wire. I'm sort of on hold till that comes.

Back to planning & testing then. If I wire up the smoke unit independently form the decoder, I believe the new cable would support parking the decoder in the tender. 

Functions in the loco:
- motor
- rail power pickup
- chuff pickup 
- headlight / cab light
- smoke unit (fed directly off rail power, with a rectifier; reuse switch in smokebox)

Functions in the tender:
- rail power pickup
- rear light
- speaker 1
- speaker 2 

More later,
Cliff


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Functions in the loco:
- motor
- rail power pickup
- chuff pickup 
- headlight
- cab light
- smoke unit (which one? stock?)
- firebox flicker leds
- small speaker for chuff

Functions in the tender:
- rail power pickup
- rear light
- speaker


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

I don't disagree Greg, thanks.

I won't have the firebox flicker, because the Big Hauler chassis shape seems crappy down there... well, I could put a flicker LED down there anyway... I'll think about it. 

For smoke, I can reuse the stock switch and heater, add the rectifier, and not go thru the DCC board. 

For cab light, I was going to install something (the annie has nothing), and wire it to the (new) headlight LED. 

I've not heard of a chuff speaker, and this annie is probably not the museum-quality loco to bother with it. But thanks for the tip, I'd like to learn more about it.

The additional tender item is the 2nd speaker. Honestly, I don't know what a stereo effect would give you, and for that matter, where to point the speakers. Both downward? If so, why bother. Left-right? Or front-rear? Where would the speaker holes go? Anyway, I'm going to be breadboarding the whole thing first, and will report back on this stereo thing.

After dealing with all the LED's (the headlight / tail light need replacement, plus cab and maybe firebox), and completing the full breadboard on all else, I'll make the decision on where to mount the board.

Thanks Greg,
Cliff


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

Say... Is there room in the smoke box for a small speaker Cliff.. Plus enclosure cover???
Thats where chuff belongs.. Many have done this previously..

Looks good.. Board Bread along! Dont get board!! Lol

SD


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

I use the gyro light decoder feature to make a red led flash in the firebox and a auto flashing yellow led with it. Gives good random color mix.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks Dirk. I suppose there's room, but I don't think there's a dedicated chuff sound output from the board. 

Thanks for the idea Dan. I think I have a couple flicker LED's though, in case it's wired up with the headlight.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Dirk has it right, small speaker in the smoke box, use the equalizer to put the chuff and bell there... other speaker in the tender...

Play with the equalizer to get the sounds as you like them, but chuff sounds much more realistic coming from the loco and not the tender!

Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

OK, I get it. I didn't know you could set the balance discrete sound effects until yesterday. I even have a small 8 ohm speaker that I think will fit. Thanks guys. 

Now for the next problem. After I got all the motor, smoker, lights & resistors breadboarded and working properly, I hooked up the speakers. The sound quality is great! But it's all diesel noise, including a loud horn that keeps blaring. When I start running (the loco of on rollers), there's no chuffing or anything that reminds me of a steam loco.

The board's packaging / manual is specifically marked for steam, not diesel. So I've emailed the mfgr and dealer for some clues. Maybe it's just a programming thing, maybe it's stuck in a demo mode of some kind, we'll see. 

Cliff


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Looks like I have to replace the Titan. So I've been spending the day with the other decoder I have on hand, which is a Soundtraxx Econami 400. All seems to be working ok, though it has taken forever to figure stuff out... more later.

[edit] I didn't mean to complain, it's all good hobby-related tuition, haha!


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

QSI is will be replacing my board, and I'll save it for my next conversion. For this one, I've switched over to another board, Soundtraxx Econami 400 which recently came out.

Here is my "breadboarding" of the components.










And here is the literal breadboard of the led's.










At the top are the fwd / reverse lights; lower left the cab light; lower right the flicker light pair (one red, one orange) for firebox. The latter two needed resistors in series to get the right resistance.

At first, I was having lots of trouble programming the board using my NCE Procab. The CV's are complicated, like 1.302 (not just 1 or 302 or some integer). BUT, thanks to Greg E's help and advice a few years back, I already had the bits to get JMRI fired up. So the weird CV's put me over the edge, and I decided to tackle that learning curve.

After blowing some time with a serial cable which wasn't a true pin-to-pin version (it was a stinkin modem cable...), and getting a proper one, all magically worked. It was really like magic: my computer screen showed all the specs and CV's and sound nuances of the card, ready for me to mess with them.

What a total blast!! I've gotten the programming done enough to verify the wiring, so next step will be doing final wiring and reassembly.

===>Cliffy


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Cool. I've been very pleased with the Econami I put in my K-27. Great sound and motor control. I was a little apprehensive about the lack of a chuff cam, but I'm very pleased with the accuracy of the BEMF chuff on the Econami. (The new Tsunami 2 is just as good.) 

Later,

K


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

I agree Kevin (and Dan), the BEMF chuff timing is working fine. You can tune a setting to make exactly 4 chuffs per revolution.

Here's the circuit. [Edit, on 11/27: I've updated the circuit for as-built details].


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

The long T-day weekend gave me time to get back into this, starting with the wiring. I won't bore y'all with all the mistakes... it took 3 installs of the DCC board before I got it all to fit. And for every wire tie that lasted, I'm sure I cut 5. Stuff like that. But in the end, all worked out well, and here's the results, starting with the tender.










Since I'd like to do some detailing on this loco down the road, and will need to get everything apart, I connectorized the components on the tender and loco bodies, using cheap JST connectors such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013WTV270

Here's the loco, showing the final resting place of the board, which is held down by a velcro-like product. 










The smokebox area turned out to be a nice place to wire-nut and coil up the bulk of the wires. 

After putting it all back together, I realized I'd forgotten something, and took the boiler back off. I did that 4 times.  After that last reassembly, when the back headlight didn't work, I thought I'd scream. But fortunately, I'd just forgotten to plug the tender into the loco. Phew! 

About that main connector, and how it gets connected....

I'm not super thrilled to get on my hands and knees every time I have to plug those little tender connectors into the backhead area; and with this loco, there were going to be 3 connectors. Because of one of them being way over-stressed (see discussion above), I decided to do something completely different. 

I needed wires for rail power (new tender pickups), rear headlight, and speaker. After looking at various options, I got an 8-pin mini-din extension cord, with #28 awg wire. I used all of the wires: pairs for rear truck, front truck, light and speaker. The connectors are pre-made with the cable, so all I needed to do was cut the cord and strip it. 

The connectors are housed in the tender, and my plan for that involved the "conversion" of the tender to oil, as I brought up on another thread. 

http://forums.mylargescale.com/15-model-making/72530-coal-tender-conversion-oil.html

This here is a real hack job though, completely unlike the beautiful work that Harvey showed on that thread. For this, I needed a removable cover, and soon; and I'll have to leave any further detailing for another day.

The first step was to unscrew the "coal" and cut away the spillage that Bachmann molded into the body.










Next was fashioning an acrylic L-shaped cover, that has a notch for the rear headlight post and another (not shown) for the cable to go through (at the deck). 










I glued on some styrene angles, and drilled for & installed a brass grab rail to help me lift the thing away.










The prototype had a similar doghouse on top which was, I suppose, to cover the oil fill port. 










I had a tender toolbox in the junk bin. Too small, but close enough.










Here's how it looks with the cable made up.










And with the tank top on.










Looking at the backhead, there's now no exposed connectors. I cut a bit of rubber sheet to go around the cable, and placed it inside the frame. There's also a new small notch just above the cable, to enlarge the existing hole (where the switches were) for passing thru the loco's connector.










Well, that's about it. The Econami board runs & sounds great, and I'm really happy with how this turned out. At a later date, as mentioned earlier, I'd like to do more detailing. For now, I'll just do decals.

===>Cliffy


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

BTW, here's the original I'm going after; she's parked in Carson City NV. I'm really pleased with how well the BM model matches.


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## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

That looks beautiful. Well done!


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

I think what you call a "doghouse" over the oil fill is actually a toolbox on the fireman's side of the tender. It's a common style of toolbox. Many tenders will have them on at least one side or the other for wrenches, hammers, etc. Usually they're close to the front for easy access by the crew. If you look closely, the two sides of the lid slope down at different angles. You'll see this same geometry in the tool boxes on the sides of the tenders on Bachmann's 4-4-0, 2-6-0, and I believe the outside frame 2-8-0.

Later,

K


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks Mike, glad you like it!

And Kevin, thanks for your pointers, hmmm...... Sounds like I'll have to do better research when I get into the final detailing. 

Thanks to Stan Cedarleaf again for insightful art setup and a quick turnaround on the decals. They will be white on clear, but here's his proofs in place for a size check.



















===>Cliffy


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