Narrow Gauge Diesel conversion from HO.


There is quite a difference between HON3 and HON30 in size and especially the prototypes. The 3' NG were still real railroads in essence. My almost 75 year old eyes are still working well enough. The two Blackstone K27's I have are full DCC and eventually I will set the whole layout to run with DCC. There is enough room under the front part of the shell for DCC in my conversions, possibly even sound. There is a very good video on doing DCC to these very same chassis.
 
747flier said:
There is quite a difference between HON3 and HON30 in size and especially the prototypes. The 3' NG were still real railroads in essence. My almost 75 year old eyes are still working well enough. The two Blackstone K27's I have are full DCC and eventually I will set the whole layout to run with DCC. There is enough room under the front part of the shell for DCC in my conversions, possibly even sound. There is a very good video on doing DCC to these very same chassis.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree with you more.👍 The only easy part of HOn30 is the structures aren't N scale.😁
 
SN3 seems to be fairly popular as an alternative, not as huge as ON3 but still an ability to build very detailed structures. On the often whimsical layouts, structures, scenery and atmosphere are major themes.
 
Continuing the narrow minded saga: Sometimes there will occur the occasional step back, one of the locos (without shell) derailed and fell to the concrete floor, exploding into truck parts, wheels, pretty much a full disassembly. However I found all the parts, none of which were broken. About 20 minutes of re assembly and it was back together in running condition. The second shell seems quite satisfactory and I subsequently began to design some of the accessories, air tanks, ladders, and so forth. Still to design, air horns and small roof fittings. Also ready to print some combination drilling and wire bending jigs for the grab irons etc.
 
A hiatus on working on the locos, obtained some yellow and green paint and will need to get more resin to print additional shells. Some detail added to the files and minor revisions. Had to lower the front couple pocket a little (1.5 mm). Also designed the curved front windows which can be printed in clear resin once I get some.

Resin prices bounce up and down, right now my favored resin in the sixty plus range rather than 30 or so.
 
One of the locos derailed and tumbled to the cement floor to "explode". Despite this the KATO's are built "hell for stout" and all the pieces could be re assembled. Putting this back together I decided to convert one to DCC and see how that worked out. There are several videos on converting this loco, which because of the zero clearance cowl has som problems. For my GE top, a lot of clearance so some things easier.

Zo: Hooked up the DCC pack to the track, plugged everything in, supposedly programmed the engine and it just sat there. Hmmmm. So I opend one of my Blackstone K27's, NIB.... It just sat there as well, so something not working! I dod push it around my curves and it seems to be amenable to the radius, a pleasant surprise. In all the wiring I also found out that I should have bought all PECO turnouts rather than the cheaper used Shinohara's.

Some days are better than others!
 
ZO! We can add to the confusion, both the Blackstone K37's and my converted Diesel run on DC so (apparently) I probably didn't screw up the DCC installation in the Diesel. A pleasant discovery was the K27's easily negotiated my small 15" radius curves. I had heard that 18-19 inches was minimum.

Maybe the DCC pack isn't working? I have no idea how to check this out.
 
Sent a query to NCE customer support. The unit does not output any AC volts whatsoever, so a dead unit at least on the output end. Should have tested the unit right away when I got it on 'Evil Bay". Maybe fixable, maybe not.
 
Last edited:
Evil Bay, been a little disappointed in vendors. The NCE dual DCC controller clearly didn't work, no AC output whatsoever. More recently I ordered a jug of Phrozen Rapid Black Resin, took two weeks to arrive despite high shipping charge, was not in original packaging, seal broken and not full. Not "New" as described but used?

A small victory was the DCC conversion seems to work, only as attested by running OK on DC, smoke test was OK. I have to research how to do LED lights, what sort of resistors etc. Currently adding hand rails and grabs to the loco shells. The long grabs by the loco doors will have to wait till I do the two tone paint and add the dividing stripe. I think I will use the cameo machine to make the striping tape.

My small layout so far only has a 1/4 mile loop and numerous sidings etc. I think I'll add a shelf extension to represent the mountain mainline with tunnels, trestles etc.

As to the NCE controller, I ordered a Digitrax unit to replace it. Guess a bad luck write-off. maybe will hear from NCE support in a few days?
 
Heard from NCE, send it in, fairly rapid response. As to the Diesel I converted to DCC, it runs my loop one way but derails the other, one of the trucks seems to not have a full pivot, so I get to take it apart again. Not sure What's restricting it as it negotiated the 15" radius curves well before it took the trip to the floor.

As to pulling power, someone opined that these could pull the wallpaper of the wall...
 
Added some more paint for the two tone paint scheme. Need a bit more touchup, awaiting arrival of LED lights, need to finish the hand rails etc. But looking more colorful!
GE 95.jpg
 
To quote one of Slick Willie's homilies: "even a blind hog can find a chestnut now and then". My two bundles of LED's (with attached resistors) arrived and I successfully got the forward and back headlights to work. Bright little buggers! The forward one illuminates the cab more than I would like so I'll have to have a go with Black or liquid tape. They achieve full brightness the instant power is applied. I learned a bit about soldering and wiring for these. I used sets of junction pins I got from Micro Mark to allow easy detachment of the shell from the body.
DL535 loco.jpg
 
Last edited:
Two things seem to ameliorate the stray light from the fwd LED. On the second sheet I wrapped the base of the LED in 500 mph foil tape, opaque! On the first unit I added some tape on the inside and dabbed some black paint on the outside, which will be followed by the matching green. Surprisingly that was enough to eliminate shine through the thin shell at this point.

BTW the above loco photo is of Mike'May's advertisement for his new HON3 loco he is having built, Spring 2024 delivery. It's apparently parked at Bennett North of the White Pass, in Yukon.

I went through my wire stash and have decide to use a super flexible stranded wire as it easily tucks out of the way, not stiff like most wire products. Some have used fiber optic cable to do running lights etc. Something to investigate!

Tom
 
I wired up the lights on the DCC version to the decoder. Since I don't yet have a working DCC power plant, It does run on DC but of course the lights don't work, so I will have to see if they work when the DCC unit arrives. For some reason the DCC'd engine doesn't like the 15" radius curves whereas it worked fine before its trip to the floor. I DCC'd it when re assembling. Not sure what is very slightly restricting the truck being. It will negotiate the curves one way but not the other. There are of course eight ways the trucks could be added, I of course didn't consider this on original disassembly. Perhaps close inspection will reveal hard stops for the swing which can be fudged.

The LED's I used were the tiny bulb like ones with added resistor. For some applications I have further ordered some tiny surface mounts ones and a bunch of 1K Ohm resistors. These could be used for marker lights and whatnot.
 
Of course the plot has to thicken in the Narrow Minded world. I just won a KATO NW2 chassis on Evil-Bay for $41, perfect for narrow gauging yet another diesel. Of course I have two perfect shells so I could sell the combo for maybe three times, but these are too much fun. If I ever figure out the DCC stuff, perhaps I'll add sound to one.

I have a file made for the rebuilt shovel nose locos so this one will be a new one. These locos are some of the smoothest runners made and reportedly can pull the wall paper off the wall.

Cheers: Tom
 
Adventure continues: My Digitrax DCS52 arrived today (controller) and I got it to run my Shovelnose Diesel. The initial impression is that it runs smoother, especially at very low speeds(<1 mph). Quite amazing! Somehow the fwd and back headlights not working yet, I suspect that I have to program them.

I tried running my Blackstone K37's and I suspect that whoever had them before had set the to some code that I am not aware of. I think I can ferret this out on the programming track when I get it set up. They make some sounds like the turbo generator but don't move. I'll guess it will be OK to DCC the other KATO, but maybe I'll get some experience with all this first.

In the spirit of RTFD: the front headlight works when I press the "0" key, the back apparently has reversed leads? Odds are I should find a Chestnut eventually!
 
Last edited:
As US Grant was won't to say "Life is just one #%$@# thing after another. After running pleasurably for a while the decoder failed the smoke test. Apparently Digitrax warrants this occurrence. If true, generous on their part. So I had another decoder and installed it, which ran fine till I decided to try to change the decoder address. I ran around in circles for some time till I got things going again.

Then got out one of the Blackstone K27's and successfully programmed it to a new address and watched it puff around the layout at slow speed. However the dual flywheel GE diesel is somewhat better about creeping along at 1-2% throttle at 1/2 mph.
 
One wouldn't think the direction one runs something should make a difference. In this case I mistakenly bought a number of Shinohara turnouts. Not that they aren't well made, they just aren't setup for DCC. I modified several but the one in question will require surgery as its laid down with soldered connectors. The issue is the K27's, as with most steam locos only have one side connectors in the short wheel base tender and when that side hits the dead spot she stalls. The Diesel does better with more contacts on a longer wheel base.

The K27 looks really cute chugging along with a short train behind it!
 
As it turns out I am 0 for two with my K-27's. Nasty E bay folks selling wares they know are faulty. One has no pickup on any of the drivers, broken connection somewhere. The other the bloke had broken the pin that holds the electric connectors to the tender in place, and the headlight is TU (Totally unusable). Another KATO NW2 arrived today, I narrow gauged it and it runs. One (or more) will be converted to sound. I printed a post reconstruction GE shell, but of course these will take a while to accumulate all the electronic parts. Amazing that I was able to get a running KATO chassis for forty bux. Nothing more than what I needed.
 
Printed a pair of new shells of the GE locos, I'll have three when I am done, which is enough. One is primed, the other still hanging bat like on the printer downstairs. I think (maybe) there is enough room at the back of the shell for a speaker, after running the K27's with their Soundtraxx I think I like the effect! Maybe Diesels not as great, but should be fun.

Tom
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top