Broadway Limited Installations?

[swoyekr]

I have a Broadway Limited Reading T1 I'm partial to keeping, however, from what I've read the BLI units can be difficult to install the railpro receiver into. Is this true? Anyone attempt the installation?

[Alan]

I have no practical experience with BL and RP however, if you are willing to forgo the factory BL features and make the loco a pure RP installation then it should be no different than any other loco manufacturer - they're all fundamentally wheels, motor, and wires.

[TwinStar]

BLI diesel locomotives are crap. Absolute junk. Their DC/DCC electronics are even worse than their models. I have two of them and loath the day I invested as much time and effort as I did working with them. My advice is to remove any electronics that BLI installed and do a clean RailPro install. Sorry for the bad news but that's my experience with them and I still need to disassemble them, again, and mill the frame properly so that they will sit on their trucks level.

[swoyekr]

Thanks for the replies, I guess no news is really bad news if you get where you need to go. I have some experience with soldering and splicing but never on a locomotive, just house and automotive. Not sure if I'd have to find a splicing harness to connect into the railpro unit or how that works really... so that I can always change it out later if the railpro thing doesn't stay viable.

Maybe I'll just have to tear her apart and see what's going on in there first, was just hoping someone had some experience before I dropped $400 on the ring setup and tore apart my $450 Loco. It's the only train I run right now, but I'll be expanding into diesel soon enough and the NCE controller I use for DCC is good enough but nowhere near as up-to-date as a railpro setup.

[TwinStar]

Make sure you're checking Bill's prices before ordering.

https://www.pdc.ca/rr/catalog/product/harnesses-keep-alives-and-other-accessories/63

Soldering on a loco isn't much different but you'll want to use less heat on the small wires. A small bit of solder on the tip will be good enough. Get some small shrink tube (I think Bill has that too) and connect the dots on the diagram and then plug it in. In all fairness to BLI, I've removed the electronics from every locomotive that I put RailPro in. Most of us are also installing Keep-Alive type capacitors to provide continuous power to the module.

There's a ton of knowledge here and anyone will get smarter by reading the posts here (not mine of course!).

[William Brillinger]

Here's a better link for my prices: http://www.pdc.ca/rr/catalog/products/railpro-and-accessories/13

And if somebody sees better prices (including shipping) out there, let me know!

[Alan]

Thanks for the replies, I guess no news is really bad news if you get where you need to go. I have some experience with soldering and splicing but never on a locomotive, just house and automotive. Not sure if I'd have to find a splicing harness to connect into the railpro unit or how that works really... so that I can always change it out later if the railpro thing doesn't stay viable.

Maybe I'll just have to tear her apart and see what's going on in there first, was just hoping someone had some experience before I dropped $400 on the ring setup and tore apart my $450 Loco. It's the only train I run right now, but I'll be expanding into diesel soon enough and the NCE controller I use for DCC is good enough but nowhere near as up-to-date as a railpro setup.

Soldering in a 9 pin connector ain't no big thing. If you know which end of a soldering iron to hold then you know everything needed to get the job done.

[G8B4Life]

I've only got one BLI loco but I've not yet put RailPro into it. Undecided if I'll do this and use it as a "test bed" or maybe get rid of it (Hey BLI, when I pay your high prices I expect something that's accurate, not a close enough is good enough repaint!).

With that rant over, I don't know if the T-1 came as non Paragon or not but if it's a Paragon series I imagine it'll be a complete rewire like my BLI will have to be; all the different wires to the bogies, motor, lights etc are all terminated in small JST style plugs that plug into the BLI DCC board. These plugs are smaller than the standard DCC size JST plug.

I'd really hate to discourage anyone from RailPro because RP is good but I'm not sure a BLI (Paragon at least) would be a good first time install for anyone, especially if they're thinking of possibly reverting it back in the future.

- Tim

[nodcc4me]

BLI Paragon is just an improved DCC sound system, which is not used with RP. Their steam engines are good looking and good runners. Look for their older Blue Line models, which are DCC ready, and much cheaper than DCC equipped. I have done RP installations in two of them, but it was years ago and I can't remember if I used their board or hard wired them. With 31 engines, it's all a blur. 

[swoyekr]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I'm still a little on the fence so I think I'm going to keep using the power cab for now or maybe one of those wifi ipad ones lol!

I'm sure I'd consider cutting if railpro just gained a little more mainstream support because cutting into my T1 isn't something I'm fairly excited about, but I do love the setup.

[BNSF MoDak Division]

I did an install on a BLI MILW S3. Basically ended up ripping out all the old BLI electronics and installed railpro. I kept the speaker in the tender for sound. It was fairly straight forward.

[swoyekr]

DId you keep the wiring between the tender and the engine or did you have to rewire all of that too?

[nodcc4me]

When wiring steam engines, I haven't had to change wires to the locomotive. You just need to figure out which wires go where.

[swoyekr]

Here's a better link for my prices: http://www.pdc.ca/rr/catalog/products/railpro-and-accessories/13

And if somebody sees better prices (including shipping) out there, let me know!

Just placed my order... here we go.

[William Brillinger]

Thanks for your order!