I often said that the engine wiring is one of the downsides of working with the extra features of DCC. Steam engines have the advantage of tenders to store everything, but the disadvantages of wires into the engine itself. I have thought of running the wires through perhaps a hollow draw bar mechanism but that too has it's complications.
I think my Sunset Geep-9's are really the worst for complications, which is part of the reason I'm rebuilding them. The dual motors take up valuable space, so I decided it was best to power them with dual decoders (one for running and one for sound), add the speaker, and 8 separate lights and you have a drain clog of wires. I had so much trouble just tucking the wires under the hood without crimping them or getting them in the way of drive shafts. The other side of DCC for me that needs improvement is the way the power supplies and boosters are designed to be wired. I use Digitrax stuff but I know the NCE isn't any better in that respect. I suspect that the folks at Digitrax are redesigning theirs' but to what degree I'm not certain. I personally have to deal with all the cables used in my computer systems plus all the wires I have to utilize in my studio so dealing with them is sort of second nature but still a royal pain! When many of us visited Bob Jackson's layout a couple of years ago, I noticed they had a very nice looking system. Bob Werre BobWphoto.com > > > --- In [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>, Bob > Werre <bob@...> wrote: > > > > George, I mounted the speaker in the 'traditional' place > > I've done installations in both Mikado's and Pacific's and opted for > tender speaker installations to maximize the speaker size. I generally > use the largest RailMaster speaker I can fit. I think the improvement > in sound quality off sets not having the preferred mounting in the > front of the boiler. > > My Berk, 2-10-4's and Niagara all have room for a bass reflex speaker > in the front of the boiler - that cannot be beat! I do have to say > that wiring and running lighting is the biggest pain - maybe jewels > and MV lenses are a better idea!! > > Jim Kindraka > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
