Since there is no room in N-scale locomotives for keep-alive decoders, I’d like to equip mine with removable cables (ok, wires) that allow them to share electrical pickup between all the locos in a consist.
Has anybody done this? What parts did you use? Where did you get them? Where did you connect them? How did you hide them?
Lion does this with his subway cars, but they’re also in HO scale.
I use mini-plugs between my DC steam locos and their tenders to provide as much electrical pick-up points as possible, but they might be too large for N-scale.
The first ones used the plugs simply soldered to wires, then, once connected, stuffed into the front of the tenders…
…while later ones were a little neater…
I also used them on this Bowser PRR A-5, but because it’s DCC, there are a total of 6 plugs, ganged into two groups of 3…
I’ve bought them at a couple of different places, but it seems, for some reason, that the female ones are getting harder to find.
Wayne
There is a member in here that has done, but in HO.
N scale, I would think any wire bigger than 30ga. would look way out of scale.
Do they make super tiny mini connecting plugs that would work?
And if you did find the parts, how many times do you think you’d pull it part and have to redo again. Very fragile.
Maybe investagte the reason you need the keep alives to begin with. Dirty track, wheels, frogs, I dunno. I’d probably start with that.
Mike.
I’ve thought of mounting the female part of these on both ends of the loco and using solid wire of the appropriate diameter as the cable and male “plug”. If nobody has a better idea, that’s probably what I’ll do.
I’m still not sure where to connect to the loco. Maybe the decoder plug. (I’m using DCC)
carl425,
I use Miniatroics 2-conductor plugs to electrically couple many of my HO Scale A/A and A/B locomotive sets together for better electrical pickup.
I solder leads from the power lead for the track pickup wires at both ends of the coupling. I usually run the wires through a hole drilled in the rear of the locomotives. Once connected, the plugs are inserted into the loco shell. The only thing visible are the two wires.
In this photo a F7 A/B set are shown electrically coupled for 16-wheel pickup. The wires are just visible at left.
I don’t know if you would have room the the mini-plugs in N-Scale. Maybe under the loco?
Hope this helps.