ScaleTrains ES44 install

[KPack]

I recently acquired one of ScaleTrains' excellent ES44 models.  They are great in all respects.  Definitely the top of the tier for this particular locomotive.


I don't use the factory electronics board, except for a single model in my collection.  All other locomotives in my possession have been completely gutted of all factory electronics and Railpro hardwired in.  This locomotive was not an exception.  The model comes from the factory with a board using a 21 pin plug.  That does not leave enough room for both the LM and a PBM (keep alive) so it must be removed. 


I also don't like the speaker enclosure that ScaleTrains uses for their models.  Even with expensive speakers like the Scale Sound Systems offerings, the small space for speakers leaves it sounding "tinny" and without depth.  So I picked another TB Speakers sound module and got to work.  The chassis had to be disassembled so I could cut a large piece off the upper weight.  An angle grinder with a cut off wheel is a much faster way to do this than using a mill.  Once the piece was removed and the sound module shaved down to slim it up, I installed it with caulking.  Then it was just a matter of installing the LM and PBM, and hooking up all the wires.  Easier said than done.  It took a couple of hours to do everything from start to finish. 




A couple of notes for anyone hardwiring Railpro in these locomotives.
1.) The orange and gray wires do not match up with the orange and gray on the wiring harness.  They are reversed.  Railpro makes it easy to change the direction of forward on the locomotive, so no big deal.  But if you want the locomotive to run forward without having the change it up in settings, connect gray with orange and orange with gray.
2.) All the step/ground lights (5 of them) have a black and red wire.  The black all get connected together with a resistor, then to an output wire from the LM.
3.) All red wires (except for track wires) get connected to the blue common. 
4.) 1/4 watt 1K ohm resistors work fine for the LEDs in these models.

The locomotive runs great, and sounds great with my speaker.  I'm getting a bit of clipping sometimes though, so I think I need to mess with the volume settings a bit to be sure I'm not overdriving the speaker.  Lights are excellent. 


Nighttime lights.  I don't light my numberboards because I always change the numbers.  And the ground lights are not as bright as they look in the picture.


-Kevin

[ON28]

Always first-rate work, and glad to see you back!

[Smoke]

Clean looking installation as always Kevin. Out of curiosity how much does the loco weigh with the weight you removed? They're pretty heavy from the factory and I imagine the pulling power is still great with the weight removed.

[Orlando]

Awesome job on the installation Kevin. You hit the nail on the head about the sound with Scaletrains models.Most of my locomotives which are Scaletrains have Scalesounds speakers. Enclosed in the body of the model the speakers do not sound how they supposed to. They lack the bass and rumble that we all want. About 2 yrs ago I purchased 50 speakers from digikey that fit exactly into the Scaletrains stock enclosure which sounds better than the stock ones and those are the speakers I use now on Scaletrains models. Then again, I buy them Dcc ready.

Orlando

[KPack]

Sorry for the extremely late reply, been busy with work and life.

Smoke - I haven't weighed the locomotive after the weight was removed, but the model is still very heavy.  Heavier than most other locomotives I have.  As you suspected, there is zero issue with pulling power. 

Orlando - What speakers did you end up using from Digikey?  I do really like the TB speaker modules I've been using, but they are not easy to fit.  I'm not opposed to trying something else if it sounds decent.  I don't think that anything can match the bass of the TB speaker though.  I have an Athearn Genesis Dash 9 that I want to try to put a large speaker in but it looks to be much more difficult than the Scaletrains model.  Not really looking forward to it.

-Kevin

[Jdiesel1319]

I watched several of your videos on YouTube and they are great! Is there anyway you can make one about hard wiring a scale trains loco. This post was great but I don’t trust my self to not dry a $100 controller or $300 loco .thanks

[KPack]

I watched several of your videos on YouTube and they are great! Is there anyway you can make one about hard wiring a scale trains loco. This post was great but I don’t trust my self to not dry a $100 controller or $300 loco .thanks

Watch Part 2 of the ScaleTrains Dash 9 build:

. 

There's a 4 minute section in the middle that goes through how I install and wire the locomotives.  Every ScaleTrains locomotive that I've done is essentially the same.  It's not hard to do, it's just incredibly tedious.  It's one of my least favorite things to do.  I have a new Athearn Genesis G2 Dash 9 that I'm getting ready to install Railpro in, and I'm not looking forward to it.  I'm trying to install another large speaker in it, which means I will need to completely dissemble the locomotive from the frame.  Ugh.

-Kevin

[Jdiesel1319]

Thank for the video, I need to know which wires go where, your wiring part was fast and I tried to slow it down, looks like the white and yellow for the ditch lights went to yellow on the module, I’m just a little confused I guess on what goes where. Any help would be great!

[KPack]

Thank for the video, I need to know which wires go where, your wiring part was fast and I tried to slow it down, looks like the white and yellow for the ditch lights went to yellow on the module, I’m just a little confused I guess on what goes where. Any help would be great!

It honestly doesn't matter which wire goes where.  Yellow, white, green, purple....it doesn't matter.  You can assign each color wire to whatever function you want it to be from the Railpro controller.  So any color wire can control the headlight....you just have to assign it on the controller.  Typically I reserve the green and purple for ditch lights, ground lights, or beacons.  I tend to use the white and yellow for main headlights and rear lights.  But you can use whatever you like.

If you are working with LEDs (which you should be), then the resistor goes on the connection between the colored wire and the LED.  Use 1k ohm 1/4 watt resistors.  The other wire from the LED will go to the "common" blue on the controller.  All of those wires will connect together to one....they all go to the same place.  That is shown in the video.  I show which ones on ScaleTrains locomotives go to common and which go to resistor.

The schematic that comes with the LM-3S from Railpro is helpful as well.  Just follow it and you'll be fine.  You will need some patience to do your first locomotive though.  It will take a while.  It gets easier after the first.

-Kevin

[Jdiesel1319]

Thanks man, I really appreciate it, I plan on doing it this week. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

[Jdiesel1319]

Ok so followed everything. Everything works good except…… the ditch lights. They are lit up but when the horn blows, instead of alternating flashing the front and rear alternate. I put the yellow and white on the same out put. As I’m thinking, what it think I need to do is put the yellow together on one out put and the white on another. Or maybe not, any help would be great, thanks!

[G8B4Life]

You will probably need to tell us exactly what you have hooked up to what wire so we know what you've done but this is what basically what you'd need to do. The colours are arbitrary.

White: Front Left Ditchlight
Yellow: Front Right Ditchlight
Green: Front headlight
Violet: Rear headlight

On the HC you'd set the ditch lights up using the On/Off 1 second dual lighting effect effect, selecting the appropriate wires, white and yellow in this example (you could set them up with a button for each light using the On/Off 1 second lighting effect but there's probably no real point to that) and the ditch function button using the Ditch Finish On effect. Make sure you use the correct button icons.

You've already got the flash ditchlight on horn function worked out.

- Tim

[ON28]

I recall someone breadboarding an LM test setup, to figure out the lights and wiring prior to installation. Almost a necessity with today's 21-pin outputs. Anyone else remember this?

[G8B4Life]

That was probably me from five and a half years ago. Good memory if that's the case. https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,549.0.html. Still have and use that board.

- Tim

[Jdiesel1319]

Ok, I have done 4 locos now, a week for the first one, about two hours for the rest of them. 2 scaletrains and 2 Athearns. Thank you guys for all the help!