I am building a Bowser steam engine kit and will be placing a decoder on board. This has the newer style motor that is DCC compatible. However, I cannot find any references to the amp draw from these motors. Anyone worked on these engines relative to the amp draw from the motor? I am thinking of using a TCS T-1 1 amp decoder but am having second thoughts on whether the motor will fry the decoder.
I have a Bowser 2-10-2 kit that I haven’t started assembling yet, but considering the weight of the boiler and the type of motor supplied with it, when compared to the weight of a Broadway Limited 4-8-4 or my Lionel Challenger, I’m sure a TCS T-1 can handle the load because it’s rated at 1.3 Amps continuous load.
Now that SoundTraxx has finally released their Tsunami sound decoder, I might try putting one of them in the tender.
You could test the motor before it is mounted into the engine to determine what its stall current is, and then find a suitable decoder or buy a newer motor from Bowser.
The stall current of the newer motor in my Challenger is 2 amps, so you’ll need a pretty powerful decoder for it.
Bowser Steam kits use the “we used this in the good ole days” Pittman Model DC-71 motor. The are notorous high amperage drawers. They even caused problems back in the DC power days because of that. I am told that if you ever want to DCC a Pittman motor, start with decoders slated for O scale.
James
Thanks all for the information. It is obvious that this a big old beast of a motor. If I ever have to move my layout I can probably pull it around the room with this engine.
I have found the kit to be quite enjoyable to build. Just takes time and patience. Not hard, but walking away from it on occassion is recommended.
Maybe I should figure out how to conduct the stall test just out of curiosity first. Most likely going to play it safe and use a bigger decoder.
If I go to sound might be best to use a DSX decoder so the motoer isn’t an issue. From the expirience of drilling out a hole for a headlight, it will take quite a bit of time to drill out holes in the metal tender for a speaker.
For reference should anyone else be looking. I ran the stall test on my two bowser kits and they both maxed out at 2.0 amps. These kits are an E-6 Atlantic and the K-4 Pacific. I believe its the same motor for all the different kits though.
The T-1 decoder manual states it has a 1.5 amp rating with a 2.0 amp max tolerance. I’m going to try the T-1 when its ready to see how it goes. As for sound, looks like I’ll have to wait for the higher amp unit to come out for the tsunami some day.
Thanks all again for your input. I had forgotten about how to do a stall test.