# Small Scale Railways install



## KVBarkley (Jan 9, 2009)

Just got my Small Scale Railways card - went with the Huckleberry Railroad 4-6-0, because my son liked the whistle. (He is also quite tickled - he has repeated it to several others - that it was called the Huckleberry railroad because it was so slow one could jump off the train, pick some huckleberries and catch up to the train and get back on!)

Anyway, I am going to install the SSR and my new Enhanced RailBoss into my Aristocraft Slope back tender. I think I will have more room in the tender than in the AC 0-4-0. I will put a switch in the 0-4-0 so that the motor can run from the ERB in the tender or from its own track pickups.

As a test for my son's birthday, I just kludged up the ERB between my power supply and the track and things worked fine - once I moved the R/C receiver from the top of the power supply. (Thanks for putting in the staus LED, Del!) Everyone had a good time running the train. Though as Del points out in the instructions, younger kids tend to run things faster than scale! We also had it running over the new bridge (pictures forthcoming!).

So, now for the sound related questions. My Slopeback Tender has a chuff sensor that is somehow connected by rollers to the trucks. I was just going to try to use this sensor and not use the SSR IR tranceiver, since there seem to be some ambient light problems reported with the IR tranceiver. However, I was checking it out last night and there seems to be a *lot* of drag with the little rollers on the existing Slopeback tender chuff sensor. Has anyone had any experience with this? Is there a way to lube it? If I cannot resolve this, I will just go ahead and use the IR tranceiver and build a light tight box.

Also, the SSR *does* have a trigger input for triggering the Bells and Whistles. There are some limitations, however. It has only *one* trigger, and it triggers the bell or whistle depending on speed. (i.e., at slow speeds you get the bell, at high speed you get the whistle). Anyway, I tried to kluge this onto my kluged ERB but it did not trigger properly. My understanding is that the ERB trigger shold essentially switch states from high impedance normally to a low impedance when triggered. The SSR claims to have a "CMOS Trigger" input. When I connected the + on the ERB to the SSR +5 V and the - on the ERB to the CMOS trigger, nothing happened. *

I suspect that the super high impedance of the CMOS trigger allowed it to float to +5 V no matter what the state of the opto-isolator. I believe that a pull down resistor (about 1K ohm or so) should fix the problem.

Any thoughts?



*So I used the reed switch that came with the ERB and hooked it to the SSR card and were able to trigger the bell with a refrigerator magnet. The party was saved!


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Use the optical sensor and get rid of the drag roller. I installed mine.. similar set up, though I'm using a E-less Railboss and SSR sound. I used the inboard tang of the front tender truck and painted the axle 1/2 white, I magic markered the black half.... works great Aristo C-16 

I live is S Az. Have lots of sunlight... didn't build a box, did aim the sensor up slightly... no problems. My track is on the ground, elevated tracks might need the extra protection. 

If I needed the box, half of a plastic tube, notched for the axle and capped beyond would be my 'box'. It needs some light to read the black/white interface. 

John


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## KVBarkley (Jan 9, 2009)

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think it needs any light since it has an integral IR source diode.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

I had to shield mine from the light, so I built a little box of styrene and painted it black.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Hey KV, it was early, the coffee hadn't kicked in yet... you are right. 

I looked at my tender (sloped back) and think you'd be better off using the rear truck, inboard side. 

John


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