My digital journey

As often happens in a cartoon, a lightbulb lights up over a character when a brilliant idea forms. Well, that’s exactly what happened to me. Well, a light bulb lit up over my head in November 2002. Wow, I realized that the Wilhelmshorst-Michendorf Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (WMEG) has several Delta locomotives in its inventory and if I could at least operate them as they are intended to be, I’d be able to get so much more out of my layout. The desire to operate with greater flexibility always nagged me and suddenly something made me think that, heck, I might be able to find a used Delta controller (6604) so that I could at least have a little bit of flexibility.

I casually inquired on the Märklin B&G to find out if anyone had a 6604 Delta controller they might be willing to sell. Much to my surprise an even better offer came along, an offer I couldn’t refuse, in form of a 6021 Digital control. In relatively little time, a barter deal was struck with an ETE member and soon, after an initial routing goof by the post office, the 6021 was on its way.

Ah, the wonders of having a complete set of Märklin Magazines really paid off now. All those unread articles covering different aspects of digital now came to the rescue. In no time at all, I learned that the 6021 could handle up to 15 Delta Loks in addition to the more obvious 80 digital Loks. As an added bonus I discovered that my Delta BR 98.3 Austrian Glaskasten (3387), featured an eight-key mouse piano and thus I would not have to use up any Delta addresses.

            Well, it was a start. Of my 28 Loks, three are Roco. I set these aside. Of the 25 Märklin, three were retired to my library bookshelf. These included my old faithful 3000 (BR 89), my 3003 (BR 24) “Steppenpferd” and DA800/3005 (BR 23). A friend had converted several of my Loks to Delta which I had run analog. That still left more than a few that needed decoders. The same friend had done many a conversion and offered to do some for me using extra Delta modules he had as well as some 6080 decoders. Well, back to the start.

            When my new toy arrived and before installing it on my layout, I set up a sheet of plywood in my shop, put on it a simple loop of K-track to try it out and to set the decoders in my Loks. The first one I did was my favorite BR 50 (3084/3484). Wow, those four-key mouse pianos are small but setting the switches with a toothpick was really pretty easy. At first I forgot to set the GO button but once I did the Lok ran just fine. Joy of joys, it was the start of a new era for me, a once ardent analogist. Yes, I know Delta is not full blown, multi-function, high performance digital but, hey, it’s just fun to be able to run a whole bunch of Loks on the same track at the same time. I set the Eloks to operate off the track (Pukos), as suggested in the book on 6021.The date was December 10, 2002.

My idea was to be able to operate the WMEG both analog or digital but not both simultaneously. So, I took paper and pencil to hand and thought out how best to, not only connect the new controller while retaining the use of the three 6627 Trafos that are needed for analog operation. In addition, I had to install the 6021 in such a way that it could be portable, that is, unplugged from the main part of the layout and plugged into the control panel of the Betriebswerk which was about six feet from the main control panel. I decided to mount the 6021 on a piece of ¼ in. plywood that could then slide into two L-shaped rails.

            The next day, I installed and wired in the Digital controller on the main part of my layout. The wiring, though soldered, is not permanent yet because I want to install a switch to change from digital to analog and the other way. On the 17^th I wired the Betriebswerk so that it can be operated analog or digital.

Disbelief followed by Relief

Two days later it was all over. The 6021 gave up the ghost. A voltmeter in hand and some troubleshooting over the phone pointed to a very serious problem. What happened? What caused the digital disaster? I do not know. All I do know is that it was an incredible disappointment. The next day I sent it back to my friend with whom I had concluded the barter agreement. I was so discouraged that I didn’t even go into my train room for the better part of a month.

            When I did return and while awaiting the return of my 6021, I did some serious troubleshooting that, in the end, didn’t really reveal anything. The only thing I could think of was that I had inadvertently left the variable output (red) of the 6627 trafo connected to the layout and put an additional voltage on the track. That combined with the output of the 6021 spelled trouble with a capital T. Then I thought it might have been my 100 VA lighting trafo that was the culprit but, again, troubleshooting didn’t come up with anything.

            Well, in February my digital controller came back but, as you might imagine, I was a bit nervous in connecting it. I made certain that the 6627 trafo was only used to power the 6021. I also wanted to check the current a Lok would draw while operating in digital mode. I don’t remember what it was and, besides, it doesn’t really matter since I only needed a value to compare to what the next step of my test would show. So, next, I turned on my lighting trafo and everything that it powers. The Lok performed exactly as described above, that is, it drew 0.473 amperes. It proved that the lighting trafo did not, in any way, affect the 6021. Well, more confidence was restored and soon my digital disaster faded into the background. During my days of discouragement, I said to myself, there are thousands of little kids in Germany who play with their digital starter set and never give a second thought to it. I have to remember that and do the same.

            The idea of operating both digital and analog was scrapped. I wanted to keep things simple. My catenary became non-functional and a potential fringe benefit of that might be expanding my use of Sommerfeldt catenary, but that’s another story.

            At that time, digitally I was still in the late 1980s. I had no idea what was in store for me with high efficiency decoders. I was just happy to be able to park a Lok any place and I could amuse myself with intricate switching maneuvers, or, as in German, I could do all the “rangieren” to my heart’s content.          

Yet another step

Fast forward to mid-April when I came into some unexpected hobby funds. Get this, a car nut in California offered me an almost outrageous amount of money for a old for-display-only steering wheel. With this newfound wealth, I headed to Jan Eisen’s Eisenbahn Shop, Michigan’s newest Märklin dealer.

            Initially I eyed his 1993 Dutch BR 50 (3419) and a 60901 digital conversion kit but when I saw that he had the “Hindenburgdamm” BR 50 (37844), I could not resist. I added a 60904 digital conversion kit to bring my SBB Ae 6/6 (3332) up to date. On the way back from Jan Eisen’s Märklin shop, I stopped at a proper industrial strength electronics store and invested in a grounding wrist strap.

            Before delving into the Ae 6/6, I had to try out the “Hindenburgdamm” BR 50. I popped off the tender housing, set the mouse piano to 51 and adjusted momentum (acceleration/deceleration) and top speed. The Lok’s performance was pure magic. The die was cast. There would have to be a way to convert my other Loks to the high efficiency c90 system. More about that later.

            So, I prepared my not always tidy workbench with a shiny and properly grounded copper sheet. By starting with an E-Lok with all its empty interior space, I reasoned that I would have little or no trouble finding a comfortable space for the decoder. I was right. Disassembling the old motor was the proverbial piece of cake. Doing the necessary cleaning and oiling before reassembling the new motor with its permanent magnet stator was another no-brainer. The booklet that accompanies the 60904 kit is very clear and its color coded diagram needs no words to be understood.

            After wiring the motor but not yet the lights, I set the address on the mouse piano and set off for my train room. With dangling wires in tow, I punched in the address on the 6021 and cautiously advanced the throttle. Movement! Wonderful! Reversing no problem. I had succeeded and with it came another new surge of confidence that I was capable of dealing with digital on the next level, that is, doing my own conversions.

My next step was to tidy up the wiring and connect the headlights followed with a test of the lights. They worked just fine but were not in sync with the Lok’s direction of travel. That was easy enough to fix by reversing the leads going to the brushes. 

Since then I have become increasingly more comfortable with opening my Loks and converting them from analog to digital. Some were classic analog while others were Delta and 6080. Some advice and guidance comes from well known digital websites, some advice came over the phone and other knowledge came from just trying and doing. By now I’ve done a few more 60901…4 and the results are simply great.

My point is that anyone can do these conversions. It isn’t rocket science. Sure, there will be exceptions but the simple ones are possible.

Well, now it’s November 7 and I’ve taken a few moments to see what I’ve accomplished in the last few weeks where conversions to digital are concerned. My total is ten. I can hardly believe how confident I have become. Not knowing if a surplus Delta decoder was working properly, John McVeigh talked me through it without installing it in a locomotive. Being able to bench test one of the little buggers, i.e., decoders, is well worth the few minutes that it takes. The other thing that’s interesting, to me at least, is to compare today’s decoders with those from the late 1980s/early 1990s. The size difference is marked. Today’s mouse pianos are a fraction of the size of the coding switches made a little over 10 years ago.

 A baker’s dozen plus some more locomotives

To think that a year ago I was just beginning with digital in that I was driving my Delta locomotives with the well established Märklin 6021 controller. Now, it is December 2003 and I am still using the same controller but I have largely overcome my initial fear of taking a locomotive down to its bare essentials to install some form of digital decoder. The decoders that I’ve used include Delta, the old 6080, and the two c90 high performance decoder kits, the 60901 and 60904, and even the new 60903.

By now (January ‘04), I have done 16 conversions from analog and Delta to some form of digital. Of these 14 were my own engines and two were for friends. Since doing my first conversion, the SBB Ae 6/6, I quickly learned that some have been more difficult than others and this has nothing to do with the decoder but, rather, is a function of fitting it in place. In that respect certain locomotives really stand out.

Steam locomotives

I am of the opinion, and the readers may disagree, that steam locomotives are not the easiest to convert because there is relatively little space inside the boiler and in many tender locomotives the decoder has to be in the tender. This means long wires and lots of them. There has to be sufficient slack so that such Loks can negotiate tight turns. On a scale of 1 to 10 with the last being the most difficult, I would rate the various steam Loks with tenders as about 6 to 7. Tank engines, with exception of the Bavarian BR 96 Mallet (34962), are actually not that difficult.

I converted the following tender Loks – BR 50 KAB (3084), BR 44 (3108), SCNB 26 (34156) and my BR 050 with tub tender (3315). The ubiquitous BR 24 (3003) was pretty straightforward. Tank engines include the already mentioned Bavarian Mallet, Württemberg T 5 (3312) and T 18 (3307).

My 3315 taught me a lesson. No, I didn’t fry a decoder or anything like that. I had an extra permanent magnet stator and a left over seven-tooth rotor from a 60904 conversion and so I thought I would need only a 60902 decoder and I’d be home free, well, almost free. Well, there’s more to it than that. Here’s why. The combined thickness of motor stator and rotor end shield or plate is 0.337 in. (8.55 mm); the old stator is 0.198 in. (5.02 mm) and the end plate is 0.139 in. (3.53 mm). You cannot use the old motor end plate because it is too thick. The permanent magnet stators are thicker at 0.282 in (7.16 mm) and the end plate is 0.055 in. (1.39 mm). So, 0.282 + 0.055 = 0.337 (8.56 mm), right? Now you see why a thinner end plate is needed. I ordered it, picked up the 60902 decoder and got ready to dig in. The Lok was stripped down, I put the stator in place but found that the rotor wouldn’t seat. The answer was that the left over rotor shaft diameter is 0.0782 in. (1.985 mm) and I needed one with diameter of 0.0589 in. (1.496 mm). So much for that idea. Make a long story short, I returned the 60902 and the thin end plate and paid about $17 more and came home with another 60901 kit. Problem solved. The Lok runs great.

A general comment about converting my various versions of the BR 50/52. Space in the Lok is tight. The tiny capacitors can easily interfere with the proper working of the hinged frame. You have pay close attention to their location to prevent this problem.

In early 2004, I tackled a job that required a 60903 kit. A friend of mine is getting his feet wet in digital waters in that his wife gave him a Märklin 6021 control for Christmas. He has several Delta Loks but his favorite clearly is a 1950s BR 23 (DA 800/3005) and he wanted it to perform a la 21^st century. So, a few days into the new year, I went to his house and we tackled the job. Actually, the mechanical aspect was pretty straightforward but it was the two headlights that were the toughest to wire. I followed my own advice and we tested often along the way. All went well. We put on the Lok body and suddenly we had a sick Lok on our hands. Well, to make a long story short, it turned out that the small capacitor across the brushes was touching the housing and causing the motor to run at full speed. A small piece of Scotch tape over the capacitor was the cure. All in all, with a pleasant lunch break with a good beer, the whole job did take some three hours.

Electric locomotives

Many electric locomotives are relatively easy to convert because there is so much empty space in them. As already noted, the first I did was the Swiss Ae 6/6 (3332). This engines needs a 60904 kit since the conversion also involved changing from large flat commutator motor to a drum commutator motor. The conversion went very well and on my 1 to 10 scale, rating a solid 1. It is also a great confidence builder.

            Then came another 60904 job in shape of my BR 194 (3322). A friend had converted to Delta but now it was time to upgrade to a c90, more specifically a 60904 kit. A bit more difficult than the Ae 6/6, it proved to be about a 3 – 4 on my scale. Clearly, the center section is less roomy than the Ae 6/6. There was also some tricky stuff to make certain that the two three-axle trucks would pivot properly.

            My third Elok was the installation of a 60901 kit into my 3356 (3300) SBB “Crocodile.” This one was a real challenge. Everything is a tight fit because the center section is the smallest yet of my Eloks. I’ll give this one a 8.5 to 9.

            My E 18 33681 also required a 60901 kit and all went quite well, perhaps uneventful and it falls somewhere between the BR 194 and the Swiss Crocodile. My most current Elok conversion was an E 52 (34661) which went from a Delta to a c90. Scale of difficulty was about a 5. It features a cast metal frame as opposed to the stamped ones of earlier Loks. A little snug but nothing that can’t be managed.

            In early December and working in conjunction with Jan Eisen of EISENbahn Model Trains in Plymouth, MI, I conducted “Digital Day” at his store. We had an excellent turnout. I converted his Dutch Type 1200 (3055) from analog to c90. It required the 60904 kit and, despite doing this in front of an audience, the job was, for all practical purposes, uneventful. For more information about Jan’s store go to http://www.eisentrains.com. 

Leftover Deltas and c80s

So, what do you do with Delta and 6080 decoders that have come out of Loks that were upgraded to c90? The answer is very simple, put them in an analog Lok so you can at least run it with the 6021 control. I did three of them, my two green Württemberg tank Loks. With very careful trimming of a newer (smaller) generation 6080, I fitted it into the T 18. Delta decoders went into the T 5 and that old standby the BR 24 (3003). While I like these Loks, right now I don’t have the funds to go full c90 with them. The BR 24 was very easy to do.

 An oddity

One of my favorite Loks, if you can call it that, is the Roco ET 85 (14148A) railcar. I bought this one for analog three-rail operation in the late 1980s. I ran just fine as in analog. Well, I thought there is room in it to install a decoder and a circuit to power that decoder. I had a spare 6603 Delta decoder. This one involved construction of a circuit board. While the actual conversion went relatively smoothly there were a few bumps in the way.

 So, what’s left

Well, there is another favorite on the list. I have always had a soft spot for the classic E 10 and my version is the all metal 3039. Right now it features a Delta decoder. I also would like to do my BR 012 (3310), my sole steam passenger Lok. Funny, but I just like freight more than passenger but this, my third Märklin Lok, does deserve the upgrade from Delta to c90.

            The other engines I want to think about converting are the two Bavarians – Glaskasten (3387) and the Ep 3/6 (34060). These will need the 60905 kit which was designed to accommodate DC can motors.

Italics indicate that these are not my locomotives.