Power pick-up question

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have a couple of cars that I am thinking about adding lighting to on a DCC system, and I need to know what the best kind of power pickup is. I am looking for something that stays clean and is low maintenance so I won’t have to replace or clean them and my track very often.

Any suggestions?
Greg

2

Here’s how I lit up some Athearn passenger cars:

Intermountain wheelsets. They have metal axles.

Install a thin brass “H” in the truck to lighly drag on the axles.

Install two thin brass “washers” that have tails between the truck and the car body. One tail attaches to the “H” under the truck, the other tail attaeches to the wiring in the car.

One truck is one side of the track, the other truck is the other side.

This gives you 2 wheels on each side of the track picking up current. Reliability seems to be pretty good.

It’s a roll-your-own solution. There are probably better off the shelf solutions, but they’ll cost more. Conversion time is about 30 minutes per car, including the installation of a grain-of-wheat bulb. If/when I convert over to DCC I’ll have to at least add a resistor, and maybe a decoder to each car.

Now I just need some innards to the cars…

Mark in Utah

3

Greg
You can buy PHOSPHOR BRONZE SHEETS from Micro-Mark to make pick up shoes. You can pick up power from the metal axle of metal wheel sets where one wheel is insulated.

4

IHC has complete interior lighting for cars. (wheels, pick-ups, etc) Check their website. http://www.ihc-hobby.com. Tomar also has some good pick-ups and lights, resistors etc.
Bill

5

Mark,
This method does work great. This is almost exactly the way Jay Bee does it w/ their lighting kits. Have this on a few cars/ caboose never a problem.
Bob K.

6

Greg,
I light my Athearn passenger cars using copper wire wrapped around the axles and attached to an overlong truck mounting screw with a locknut and washers. On the top of the screw, inside the car a short jumper to the weight plate. Do this on both ends. Install a 12v light bulb, in the hole in the weight to complete the circuit. The Athearn cars come with proper polarized wheel sets. Just not as fancy as the aftermarket wheels. I have electrified about 12-cars with this method and the brass/bronze “H” or “V” method. All are reliable, but the copper wire method takes less time and is, I believe, a little more positive with less drag.
Good luck!

7

Thanks guys, the phosphor bronze looks like a good method, I’ll remember that when I’m at the LHS next time, and I have all Intermountain wheelsets too, recently converted all of the old plastic wheels and it made a world of difference!!

Greg

8

Here’s a link to how I add pickups to trucks.
http://2guyzandsumtrains.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=5.html