I have several brass locos that have DCC decoders in them and wish to improve their electrical pick up I’m thinking the track sliders from Tomar would help but would like to find somebody that has used these to explain their installation. are they wired for pick up or just mounted on the frame picking up power that way?
I bought some a long time ago, but have never used them as intended. I used them as power pickups in a passenger car, mounted in the trucks making contect with the axle. To use in a locomotive, particularly a DCC one, you would have to be careful about energizing the frame and making a short to the motor or decoder.
They
I’ve installed them on a modified Athearn switcher, more-or-less just to see if they made any difference (no difference, as these locos are very reliable anyway) . There’s one on each truck, on opposites sides:
I also installed them on an old John English Pacific that I plan on rebuilding. With brass tires on the drivers, current collection can be a bit iffy. Here’s the loco before:
…and with the pick-up shoes installed (they’ll be a lot less noticeable after blackening):
Here’s the loco in its current state:
I run DC, but if you’re worried about energising the frame, you can mount the shoes on styrene pads, and use a plastic screw to hold them in place, or, a metal screw with an insulating bushing. The Pacific, by the way, is much more reliable with the pick-up shoes installed. [;)]
Wayne
Wayne,
Did you just drill and tap into the bottom of the frame or truck and just screw them in. I have some coming from Walthers that I plan on putting on a brass loco.
Chris
That’s correct, Chris: mark the spot where you want to place the screw, then remove the cover-plate before drilling and tapping. This will prevent “gumming-up the works” with the cutting residue.
Wayne
Yep, that’s what I plan to do. Always good to confirm with someone who has been through it. I have a PRR J-1 that I want to run on my layout as much as she doesn’t want to (I swear some of these brass locos). It’s just that the 30" radius in my helix has some slight humps in the track that sometime like to lift the drivers enough to lose electrical contact and stall. I’m hoping the sliders will help if I install one on the loco and one on the tender.
Chris
Chris:
I’m DC, but I have a large collection of brass steamers dating from about 1964 on up, and I install the Tomars as a matter of course. The improvement in running has been remarkable. On some of the locos, I drill and tap as per the instructions, on others, I have simply attached them to the bottom of the loco frame covers with a brass washer. It pretty much depends on the mounting screw locations on the bottom of your loco.
Generally, I attach a slider to the pickup side of the loco and a slider to the pickup side of the tender. For most brass locos and tenders, this does the job beautifully. However Tomar has thoughtfully included four sliders per package, so if you happen to have an older brass loco where the wheels have worn down through the tread plating to the raw brass underneath, two sliders per loco and one on each tender truck will improve the former jerky pickup remarkably well.
With articulateds (of which I have quite a few) I attach one slider to each driver set on the loco, and if need be, one to each tender truck. The phosphour bronze is a non-corrosive material and it has a rather nice side-effect: It actually helps keep your railheads clean as it slides along while you’re running.
I swear by them. Just about all of my brass locos run as smoothly through their speed ranges as any of my newer plastic all-wheel pickup steam. In fact, even better in some cases. [:P] If you don’t mind the fact that the sliders are kinda/sorta visible between the drivers in your close-up photos (but not that much), they’re absolutely invaluable for keeping your brass running in tip-top shape.
Tom [:D]