The Sledgehammer Approach (ESU LokSound in BLI Mikado)

[jdcolombo]

Hi everyone.

I love the BLI Light Mikado.  Excellent smooth running, terrific pulling.

I hate the Paragon 3 decoder.  Aside from things like being unable to program it to keep the headlight on in both directions and not being able to get the chuff timing as good as I prefer, I was having problems with the engine stalling momentarily on even clean track with clean wheels.  Not often, and it wouldn't be noticeable if you were using the Mike as a road engine.  But I wanted to assign it to local switch jobs, where ANY stalling is just unacceptable to me.  Engines have to operate perfectly, every time, all the time, or they don't go on the layout.

So what to do?  A keep alive was the answer, but I had no idea how to attach one to the Paragon 3 decoder in the Mike, and with the standard speaker arrangement, there also wasn't really room for a commercial keep alive.  So I decided to take the sledgehammer approach: rip out the stock speaker and Paragon 3 decoder, and replace everything with an 11x15 speaker in a custom enclosure, a TCS KA-3 keep alive, and a LokSound select micro (from my left-over stash of those decoders, although I think a LokSound 5 DCC micro would fit just fine, too).  Everything fit (barely) in the tender.

Installation photo:

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Video:

The hardest part was tracing all the wires - heaven forbid that manufacturers use the standard color coding (red, orange, blue, white, yellow, gray, black) for their wiring.  Fortunately, it is really easy to remove the boiler shell, and BLI has nicely labeled the wires that attach to a circuit board in the boiler.  Once that was done, I cut a small piece of single-sided 1/32" circuit board to use as solder points for the decoder wires and the wires going to the tender.  The tender is now permanently attached, but I wasn't going to un-attach it anyway, so no great loss.

The result: I've got the chuff timing to my liking; the TCS KA-3 ended the momentary stalls; and the headlight stays on in both directions.  And I think it sounds pretty darn good.

John C.

[glakedylan]

looks good and sounds great
nice work


sincerely
Gary

[Steveruger45]

It does run and sound good John.   Nicely done indeed.
I have been tempted to get a BLI but am concerned about that Paragon decoder.  It sure makes for an expensive loco if you have to go use the “sledgehammer” .

[jdcolombo]

It does run and sound good John.   Nicely done indeed.
I have been tempted to get a BLI but am concerned about that Paragon decoder.  It sure makes for an expensive loco if you have to go use the “sledgehammer” .

Yes.

I've gotten to the point where I just add $100 to the cost of any BLI loco, knowing that eventually I'm going to replace the Paragon.  Then I decide whether I REALLY want it at that price.  In the case of the Mikes and PA-1's, the answer was yes.  The only other light Mike out there is the MRC/Model Power one, and it is a very dated design (although it also runs well and pulls a ton, and with a LokSound and a keep alive, it's fine.  But they haven't been manufactured in a while.)  The Kato Mike is a heavy Mike, and while it is a very nice loco, the BLI out-pulls it by a wide margin.  The NKP had a ton of light Mikes, so . . . BLI was the only game in town.

John C.

[RBrodzinsky]

Nicely done, John.  I’m gearing myself up to tear out the Paragon decoders in some 9 year old BLI E9s, that stopped running well about 7 years ago (but look fantastic). I’ve basically taken a break on all things trains, except the fora, for the past 6 months (hmmm and my grandson just turned 6 mos old).

[Jim Starbuck]

Nicely done John. You use a sledgehammer with great finesse.

I just got my first BLI loco last week. A beautiful SW7 that runs great but that directional lighting is bugging the crap out of me.

Jim

[peteski]

Nice conversion John.
It is just too bad that you have to result to drastic measures like this, and such additional expense to end up with a well running (and sounding) model.

[jdcolombo]

Nice conversion John.
It is just too bad that you have to result to drastic measures like this, and such additional expense to end up with a well running (and sounding) model.

I really wish manufacturers would give us a choice.  If I could buy the BLI Mike in a DC-only version for $100 (or even $80) less, I'd probably get two more.  But I look at the pile of Paragon decoders sitting in a corner of my workbench and get depressed at all the wasted money.  My choice, I know, but still . . .

John C.

[jdcolombo]

Nicely done John. You use a sledgehammer with great finesse.

I just got my first BLI loco last week. A beautiful SW7 that runs great but that directional lighting is bugging the crap out of me.

Jim

I really just don't get the lighting thing.  Even the cheapest of the cheap decoders can alter F0 so that the headlight stays on in both directions.  Plus, doesn't BLI have ANYONE who has a passing knowledge of prototype practice?  I've watched the CN local do its switching dozens of times here in Champaign, IL - never once did the headlight go off!

John C.

[peteski]

I really just don't get the lighting thing.  Even the cheapest of the cheap decoders can alter F0 so that the headlight stays on in both directions.  Plus, doesn't BLI have ANYONE who has a passing knowledge of prototype practice?  I've watched the CN local do its switching dozens of times here in Champaign, IL - never once did the headlight go off!

John C.

Toy-train mentality maybe?  But I agree, that with all the info available on the Internet (and elsewhere) about prototypical railroad operation, one would think that BLI would strive for the model lights to correctly emulate the prototype. After all, this is all software-configarable in the decoder nowadays. 

[Jim Starbuck]

John,

In your Paragon transplants, do you always replace the speaker or have you used the stock speaker connected to the Loksound?

Thanks,

Jim

[jdcolombo]

John,

In your Paragon transplants, do you always replace the speaker or have you used the stock speaker connected to the Loksound?

Thanks,

Jim

In N scale, I've always replaced the speaker, but remember we're dealing with a limited sample - 4 PA-1's and 2 Mikes (although I replaced speakers and NOT the decoder in two T1 duplexes owned by a friend).  But I've done a couple of Paragon transplants for friends in HO scale where I've kept the stock speakers.  I just did one in an HO 2-8-2 that had dual 1" speakers in the tender floor, and I didn't replace those - the engine sounded pretty good with them, so I left them alone.

The HO scale engines had Paragon 2 decoders that we tried to add a keep alive to.  But the decoders kept losing their programmed address with my friend's NCE system when I did this (using a TCS KA-3).  Weirdly, they worked fine with my Digitrax system (though it appears that other people with NCE systems have tried adding keep alives to Paragon 2's and suffered the same problems).  So in the end we pulled the Paragons and put in ESU's with the same KA-3 keep alive.  Now they work great.

John C.

[Jim Starbuck]

Thanks John,

I’m turning the Paragon in my new SW7 into a Para-gone. It was too quirky and I just couldn’t get past that lighting.
(I tried.....I really tried)
I replaced it with a Loksound v5 Micro and am uploading the sound file now so we’ll see how/ if it works.

Edit: The stock speaker sounds fine to me with the Loksound installed.

Jim