Wiring Scale Trains Gevos

[DaveB]

Is there any way to get the ditch lights and walkway lights to work using a 21 to 9 pin connecter on the new Scale Trains Gevos?  Tried several ways and never got them to work. Finally said forget it and hard wired it. Probably the best to do it anyway. Have a Gevo and 2 dash 9's to do yet.

[G8B4Life]

I don't have any ScaleTrains stuff (though if I ever find the correct SD40-2 or if they did a Pilbara Rail version of their dash 9 I would) so I'm not familiar with the wiring layout inside of them. I think you could make it work with the 21 solder pads version of the 21 pin adapter but with the usual everyday 9 to 21 pin ready made harness I'd say not. There was some discussion (here, and also on MRH) a while back on ScaleTrains and their boards and the unusual things they have done with them. Does ScaleTrains not have listed what is hooked up to what in their manuals? Poor (but all too common) form if they don't.

- Tim

[DaveB]

Scale Trains has a parts page but no wiring diagram.  These engines have some very small wires to some of the walkway lights and are not easy to work with when hard wiring them.  We got it done and looks great running night time.  I also put in an I-Phone 8 speaker. Very little modification to make it fit. Sounds great, better than the I-Phone 4 speakers I have in my SD-40's. Someone else may want to try them.  Less than 4 bucks a speaker on E-Bay. 

[William Brillinger]

Scale Sound Systems has released their speakers for ScaleTrains models finally. I'm looking forward to wiring up my fleet of Dash9's and GEVOS and installing the SSS speakers soon! I'll be adding step lights and ground light to the models too.

I plan to hardwire the entire job. It's going to be a big project!

[G8B4Life]

These engines have some very small wires to some of the walkway lights and are not easy to work with when hard wiring them.

Ugh, I know how you feel, I got one of those new fangled Athearn Genesis 2.0 SD90's. All the internal wiring is very fine - and all black! Was an absolute pain to work out what was what.

I plan to hardwire the entire job.

That just might be the easier option. I decided to go looking into all this ScaleTrains DCC fluff and came up a bit short. While I could find the decoder files for the T4 Gevo and SD40-2 I couldn't find them for the Dash-9 or ES44AC.

So what can I tell you all? Not a whole lot...

For the T4 Gevo, which I'm going to presume is the Gevo DaveB is writing about

• According to the decoder file there are no walkway lights that the decoder has an output for. Do they come on with something else?
• The forward ditchlights are on Aux 1 and Aux 2 (pins 15 and 14 respectively) and are power outputs on the LokSound decoder so they should work on a 9 to 21 pin harness.
• The Rear ditchlights are on Aux 5 and Aux 6 (pins 17 and 3 respectively). These are logic outputs on the LokSound decoder and don't have the power to drive the lights themselves so requires trickery on the motherboard to do that. Hooking up an LM output to the motherboard for these probably won't work or could even end up in disaster.

Back to the C44-9W, without the decoder file I can't tell what outputs the ground and walkway lights are on. I rekon it'd be good if someone (not looking at anyone here in particular) traced the wiring out one of these days, especially that motherboard with the dip switches on it.

If anyone wants I can post the pin out for the T4 Gevo and SD40-2.

- Tim

[G8B4Life]

So just to follow up on this for anyone considering / wanting to do a harness install into a ScaleTrains locomotive, it won't work how you want.

I did more research to find out how the decoder was connected for the lighting to confirm my suspicion and from the smallish photo I found it does seem that all functions are passed through the pins on the connector on the motherboard and nothing is soldered to the external pads of the decoder (the LokSound v5 decoder also has solder pads for the outputs).

This means that RailPro (and some other decoders) will not be able to use Aux (functions) 3 to 8. This is because the motherboard in the Locomotive is made for LokSound decoders. LokSound follows the EU standard and AUX 3 to 8 are logic outputs, not power outputs like the headlights and Aux 1 and 2. Power outputs switch ground to turn on and off, logic outputs switch +5v (I'll do a drawing of the difference if anyone wants). RailPro, and some of the 21 pin US made decoders have all power outputs, no logic outputs.

This is a ScaleTrains GEVO DCC install I came across. It shows both sides of the motherboard, along with the work involved to put another brand of decoder and speakers in: https://bigbluetrains.com/showthread.php?tid=8506

A couple of other photo's of the motherboard:
https://i.imgur.com/IBYzbtN.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/z2RMlHz.jpg

I really wish we could kill off this 21 pin debacle of an interface and move to Plux where all sides of the pond are (supposedly) standardised on what each pin does and it's electrical characteristics.

- Tim

[Blueleader]

Glad to hear that SSS has released speakers for ST's. I also have several Dash 9's and Gevos to mod. I go with the biggest speaker I can fit but grinding metal is a pain in the arse, even though the sound is amazing compared to factory.

Scale Sound Systems has released their speakers for ScaleTrains models finally. I'm looking forward to wiring up my fleet of Dash9's and GEVOS and installing the SSS speakers soon! I'll be adding step lights and ground light to the models too.

I plan to hardwire the entire job. It's going to be a big project!

[OccamsRazor]

SoundTraxx has done 2 videos with a pretty good explanation of how to work around the lighting limitations and identifying the wires so you can do away with the proprietary ESU motherboard.

Tsunami2 TSU-PNP8 decoder install in a Scale Trains ES44 GEVO - Access all of your lights!

Scale Trains SD45 Tsunami2 TSU-PNP8 Install - Access all of your lights! (Longer & more in depth explanation.)

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