[lownote]

I've had it! I have been trying to reliably convert an LGB mogul, in D&RG Bumblebee, to run remotely via Aristo's 75 mhz. onboard Train Engineer and track power. The mogul has thee wires coming from the engine, instead of four, the motor and one side of the track are tied together. But I isolated the track power and the motor and wound up with four wires which I wired to the TE receiver. Long and the short is I can't get it to work consistently--for reasons that escape me it keeps finding ways to screw up, and seems to keep feeding track power to the motor independent of the TE receiver. A now the gears are making grinding noises. Time to put it aside, I'm too frustrated.

We have three passenger cars in the same yellow, which my wife is very fond of. So I'd like to keep the Bumblebee look

OK, so I'm thinking of maybe getting an Annie in D&RG Bumblebee, and converting that to run on the TE receiver. How hard will that be? Any idea?

Also can the Annie pull three Bachmann J+S long coaches up a grade? I have one steep patch that it would have to navigate, not sure how steep

The other alternative would be to get a plug and play Aristo C-16, but I looked at them at the ECLSTS and they were really very small--too small for the Bachmann coaches

 

[Dougald]

Our group has had a lot of experience making the Aristo products (and RCS as well) work in various locos. None of us own much LGB equipment however though Fred Mills does have one old mogul that is Aristo RC'ed.

For ideas on battery RC check out our website at www.ovgrs.org ... in addition, specific details on the B'mann Annie are at http://ovgrs.editme.com/Annie Paul Norton is our resident writer and photographer as well as head electronics installer and can add considerable detail.

Regards ... Doug

 

[lathroum]

Isn't the new Aristo C-16 coming out in Bumble bee colors too?

It has a whole new drive system and should be able to pull those cars easily...

I've never had luck with the Bachmann stuff... I have a few passenger cars and that's it...

Philip

 

[Torby]

Sounds like you may have to join the "Fish Guts" crowd and just rip the guts out of that mogul and wire it so it will work.

My Bachmann Annie has been quite reliable and is pretty strong. It has no trouble hauling my 4 heavy sierra coaches, or my 14 freight cars. It will pull all the cars I have save the chevy. It's wiring is also trivially simple to figure out. You take out a few easy to reach screws from the bottom, and you'll see the pickup wires. Just clip these free and wire to them there. At Golding's one day, I hauled 20 coal hoppers up a pretty good grade in "Southern Division" and out to "Fiddle" for him. 20 might be an exaggeration, but there was a long string of them.

The new Aristo C16 with its prime mover drive should be very smooth and have great low speed torque like their other prime mover locos. I see the bumble bee is in their new arrivals list, so it should be available shortly. Aristo also is wiring all their locos with a track/battery switch and battery connector, so they're very easy to wire up. I've twice just ripped the guts out of a tender and put the receiver and batteries there without even opening the loco.

 

[lownote]

Thanks all. As i mentioned, I saw the Aristo C-16 at the ECLSTS and thought it was too small. I thnk there's a bachman annie in my future.

 

[Paul Norton]

There is no need to open the Annie to disable the track power wires. Just pop off the smoke box cover, unsolder and shrink wrap the track power wires from the NMRA/Large Scale switch.

The wires of the MU plug that use to power the rear light can be cut and used to feed power from the 75 MHz receiver to the motor and headlight. The rear light is wired to the rear lighting circuit of the receiver and can be used for programming.

Everything including the Bachmann sound board will fit without hacking the tender.

As Doug has mentioned, there is a detailed construction article on our club web site showing how to install the 75 MHz receiver and battery packs in an Annie tender.

Battery Powered Annie

The receiver gets 100 feet or more of reliable radio range.

 

[lownote]

Paul, thank you kindly but I'm trying to do this using track power, not batteries. I'll re-read that article again and see if I can figure it out. Thank you

 

[Ironton]

Most of the LGB moguls use, or at least used to, the left track power to go directly to the motor. If this connection is not broken neither DCC nor other controls will work. What I did was to open up the motor block, from the top, and change this wiring.

First you need to take the motor out and ben the one contact on the motor. Solder to this a piece of wire. Now drill a very small hole in the top of the block to run this wire through. Now reassemble and you should have four wires coming out of the top instead of three, which is what it started with. Two are track power and two are motor leads. Now just hook them up.

Hope this helps.

 

[Torby]

Ah! A response from somebody who knows!

 

[lownote]

Thanks Ironton--I did exactly that, but the the motor still seems to be getting track power. I even pulled the pin out, insulated it, and I'm still having the problem

 

[Dan Pierce]

Moguls get motor power from the tender trucks. Perhaps you overlooked this possibility?

 

[Steve Stockham]

As to a Bachmann Annie in Bumblebee scheme pulling coaches, Here's a shot of an almost 4% grade. My unmodified Annie will pull 5 coaches up this without wheel slip. This particular one is a BBT 280 upgrade by Barry's Big Trains and the pull is more like 9 cars:

Here's a shot of an LGB Mogul doubleheading with a Bachmann and both in "Bumblebee" scheme at Marty's last year:

 

[lownote]

I actually went and bought a Bachmann Annie--what a nice little model! Lots of great detail, makes the LGB mogul look very toy like in comparison. It's remarkable that Bachmann can provide this level of detail at such a low price. It seems to pull very well. Now I need to figure out how to convert it to remote control and track power...
It looks like I can do all the necessary hookups without taking it apart, via the switches on the smokebox front, as I think Paul Norton was suggesting. Just taing my time and thinking before acting, something I often don't do!

Nice picture, by the way, orf the night scene. Are those cars lit with track power or batteries?

 

[Greg Elmassian]

I think we discussed this on another forum, the Annie has a motor lead hardwired to a track pickup internally, or so it seems from the schematic.... You gotta bite the bullet and pull it apart...

Sorry, Greg

 

[lownote]

Done--took that sucker apart, got it wired right