daifly
Western Thunderer
In a moment of affluent impetuosity last October, I purchased at the Langley show a Lionheart LHT750S DCC upgrade for the autotrailer that I had previously bought. I felt it was worth placing my experiences of making the upgrade on record as I identified a number of wrinkles and cures that may be of help to others doing the same. Correspondence with Richard Webster of Lionheart has clarified some of the questions arising.
The original autotrailer packaging had a small accessory pack ready for the upgrade. This pack contained two small springs, two brass rods and a pair of brass screws. Also included were a brake standard and five small, mysterious black plastic parts. More on these later. There is a sheet giving instructions on how to remove the roof. The coach has been factory-fitted with a speaker housing in the luggage compartment and electrical pickups from the bogie wheels taking power to the cabin floor.
The upgrade pack contained a very long, flexible PCB, a Zimo 21-pin DCC sound chip, a capacitor, a speaker and pair of purple speaker wires. There is a sheet in colour with blow-by-blow instructions and another sheet listing the function codes.
Removal of the roof was not easy. You need to push down on the roof and simultaneously slide it about 5mm towards the driving end. There are 6 pairs of clips on the underside of the roof which, when clear of the lugs on the body side, allow the roof to be lifted clear. I managed to shear off one of the roof vents in the process but Plastic Weld soon fixed that.
With the roof removed, access to the speaker cover in the luggage compartment is possible and this needs to be removed. The instructions tell you to file a slot to allow the speaker wires to exit. This seems an odd instruction because the speaker cover already has a slot moulded in. Closer inspection reveals that the speaker cover is not quite square and the moulded slot will bring the wires out in a position visible through the windows. The new slot should be at 90 degrees to the original so that the wires will emerge at the rear of the compartment. The speaker wires are soldered to the speaker tags. Refitting the speaker cover was a bit of a faff as the speaker solder tags interfered with positioning of the cover. These tags will require careful bending back so that they don’t touch the speaker frame. The cover is refitted with the wires emerging at the rear and fed up through the compartment partition ready for attaching to the circuit board.
The floor & seat modules can be removed for painting and fitting of passengers if required and the driving end false floor is removed to allow fitting of the brake standard and a driver.
Lionheart’s original plan was to have an operating tail lamp. This was cancelled but one of the included mysterious parts was intended to cover a small PCB for the lamp. The remaining 4 black plastic parts were intended to secure the speaker and lamp connections to the main PCB but a redesign of the main PCB made these unnecessary so they can all be discarded.
The brass springs, rods and screws carry the power from the floor level, through a cabin partition up to the main PCB.
The provided instructions cover the rest of the installation without issues. However, what to do with the capacitor? Apparently it comes with the Zimo decoder but Richard says that it is not needed so does not require fitting. Add it to your spares box!
All of the seats, cabin partitions etc are easily removable for painting.
Dave
The original autotrailer packaging had a small accessory pack ready for the upgrade. This pack contained two small springs, two brass rods and a pair of brass screws. Also included were a brake standard and five small, mysterious black plastic parts. More on these later. There is a sheet giving instructions on how to remove the roof. The coach has been factory-fitted with a speaker housing in the luggage compartment and electrical pickups from the bogie wheels taking power to the cabin floor.
The upgrade pack contained a very long, flexible PCB, a Zimo 21-pin DCC sound chip, a capacitor, a speaker and pair of purple speaker wires. There is a sheet in colour with blow-by-blow instructions and another sheet listing the function codes.
Removal of the roof was not easy. You need to push down on the roof and simultaneously slide it about 5mm towards the driving end. There are 6 pairs of clips on the underside of the roof which, when clear of the lugs on the body side, allow the roof to be lifted clear. I managed to shear off one of the roof vents in the process but Plastic Weld soon fixed that.
With the roof removed, access to the speaker cover in the luggage compartment is possible and this needs to be removed. The instructions tell you to file a slot to allow the speaker wires to exit. This seems an odd instruction because the speaker cover already has a slot moulded in. Closer inspection reveals that the speaker cover is not quite square and the moulded slot will bring the wires out in a position visible through the windows. The new slot should be at 90 degrees to the original so that the wires will emerge at the rear of the compartment. The speaker wires are soldered to the speaker tags. Refitting the speaker cover was a bit of a faff as the speaker solder tags interfered with positioning of the cover. These tags will require careful bending back so that they don’t touch the speaker frame. The cover is refitted with the wires emerging at the rear and fed up through the compartment partition ready for attaching to the circuit board.
The floor & seat modules can be removed for painting and fitting of passengers if required and the driving end false floor is removed to allow fitting of the brake standard and a driver.
Lionheart’s original plan was to have an operating tail lamp. This was cancelled but one of the included mysterious parts was intended to cover a small PCB for the lamp. The remaining 4 black plastic parts were intended to secure the speaker and lamp connections to the main PCB but a redesign of the main PCB made these unnecessary so they can all be discarded.
The brass springs, rods and screws carry the power from the floor level, through a cabin partition up to the main PCB.
The provided instructions cover the rest of the installation without issues. However, what to do with the capacitor? Apparently it comes with the Zimo decoder but Richard says that it is not needed so does not require fitting. Add it to your spares box!
All of the seats, cabin partitions etc are easily removable for painting.
Dave