GM50,
I have looked over, over, & over at your 3 photos. BY chance do you have anymore outlining the process that you went through ? I have 3 SP/Cotton Belt units that I am just about to "go for it" with 2 sound and 1 non-sound decoders. I did not see any evidence of required milling. Is that correct or is it hidden under the decoder? The caps look good. You used LED's for lighting?
Any additional info would be appreciated.
carl
Hey Carl, thanks. Yes, I did use LEDs in fact 3. Two for the front and 1 for the rear. I used Goo to adhere the LED to the rear end of the speaker enclosure. The front ditchlight light tube was cut so that it had just made the horizontal bend over top of the front of the chassis and Goo'ed a LED here for the ditchlights. The LED for the headlight and numberboards was a customized version of the included light shield that came with the engine. I cut the angled part of the shield and kept the top part. I then CA'ed a thin piece of styrene underneath, leaving a little to stick into the long hood where the cab meets up against the shell. I used a black sharpie to darken the white styrene to help with light bleed through.
The frame does have a little bit of milling performed on it. The front light board tabs are removed as well as sloping the frames to allow the decoder to sit at a downward angle. I used a solid copper sheet and made a small board for the SMD resistors and common solder points. Taped everything up as best that I could!
The shell around the cab back towards the dynamics was grinded, filed and sanded to allow for the decoder to slide in without warping the shell. The inside of the sill had some plastic removed to allow it to fit over the decoder as well. It took some finagling but it worked and sounds great!
