I bought a USAT Hudson from Charles Ro over a year ago that had all of the electronics stripped from it. Which is fine as going to install my own anyway. The control board is going to be in the engine with the battery in the tender. Looking at the wiring that goes between the tender and the Hudson the wiring will need to be beefed up to 20 AWG. Only issue is the exiting cable and connector coming from the tender will probably have to be replaced as I can’t take the connector apart as they glued the hell out of it. Does anyone know what kind of connector they used? I have been searching Digikey and Mouser but haven’t found it yet.
Did you look at all-electronics.com?
Have you measured the pin spacing?
Just out of curiosity, why do you have to take the connector apart? A short length of thinner wire normally is fine.
Greg
Greg I think I did finally find the connector it appears to be a:
only problem is the pins only accept up to 22 gauge wire. The reason I wanted to build a new cable originally was to try and use 20 awg wire because of the current that could potentially be drawn from the battery, matter of safety really.
So perhaps I can help you… a short length of 22 gauge won’t hurt anything unless you run so much current you melt the insulation (clearly not happening)
So 12" of 20 gauge and 2" of 22 gauge is not a big deal. Yes you will lose a little bit of voltage, but not enough to really matter, and if you are drawing 5 amps, 20 gauge is too light really.
And to safety, actually thinner wire will be safer since in a short it will limit the current better than larger wire … but of course a prolonged short will heat up almost any wire and eventually melt insulation.
And a final suggestion, put a fuse in the system, at the battery and maybe a polyswitch (the thermal self resetting breakers) on the motor. Note the connector is only good for 3 amps.
Greg
Joseph Lupinski said:
Greg I think I did finally find the connector it appears to be a:
only problem is the pins only accept up to 22 gauge wire. The reason I wanted to build a new cable originally was to try and use 20 awg wire because of the current that could potentially be drawn from the battery, matter of safety really.
If the plug/pins configuration is 6 pins as in drawing and you are only passing battery voltage (2 wires?) consider paralleling up some pins to share the current load that way you can use smaller gauge wires.
20 AWG from battery to 22 AWG across the plug then back to 20AWG this is done quite frequently in aircraft radio equipment.
Joe -
I don’t know how many lines you need to the engine from the tender, so this may not work, but I doubled up four of the lines/pins on mine for the high current connection. But in my case, the receiver is in the engine, so I only needed the two remaining lines (reverse light and marker lights).
Eric
Greg thanks for the info. Eric currently as you know there is only 6 lines in connector and like you the receiver is going to be in the engine and battery in the tender. If like you I double up the lines for power that only leaves me 2 lines for rear headlight and marker lights which I want to control separately and would need 4 wires for. So either I stick with current connector and only use two of the 22 gauge wires for power, or like what you did Eric I double up the for the power and will need to add another two pin connector to make up the extra lines I would need for headlight and marker light control.
if your tender headlight and marker lights are referenced to either battery plus or minus, you only need 2 wires for them, and you can use the other 4 wires for battery (2 plus, 2 minus).
Really though, why are you worried about the power? In one respect both of those gauges is too fine for a big motor, but so you have a little voltage loss, are you worried about top speed?
Is someone telling you that you MUST have 20 gauge?
Using solid wire as an example, 22 gauge is 16.14 ohms per 1000 foot… 20 gauge is 10.15 per 1000 foot.
Let’s use 2 feet as an absolute worst case example (same wire all the way from the battery to the receiver and then to the motor and more that a good install would use)
let’s also assume your motor has a resistance of 6 ohms (again an approximation) and 18 volts, so you have a worst case of 5 amps (beyond what you can really use with your connector)
so with 2 feet of 22 gauge, the voltage “lost” is (V = IR) = 5 * 16.14 / 500 = 0.16 volts
with 2 feet of 20 gauge, the voltage lost is 5 * 10.15 / 500 = 0.10 volts…
therefore, the difference in voltage to your motor is 0.06 volts, FIVE HUNDREDTHS of a volt.
there is no reason you need to worry about wire gauge between 20 and 22 … now if you were drawing 10 or 15 amps, and had longer wire and higher voltage, you might see a difference.
As it is, this example is for 5 amps, which is almost double the rating of your connector, but if you double the pins as I suggested, you will have 6 amp capability.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
if your tender headlight and marker lights are referenced to either battery plus or minus, you only need 2 wires for them, and you can use the other 4 wires for battery (2 plus, 2 minus).
They aren’t referenced to battery in the Hudson I have read the head light is 5V and markers 3V. Battery is 18V so unless I put a voltage regulator back there can’t really use the power in the tender.
Really though, why are you worried about the power? In one respect both of those gauges is too fine for a big motor, but so you have a little voltage loss, are you worried about top speed?
Is someone telling you that you MUST have 20 gauge?
No one is telling me I need 20 gauge wire I was just doing it as more as a safety thing, that is until I realized that the connector used isn’t meant for 20 gauge wire. I just wanted to ensure that if I am doing a large amperage draw say if I am pulling a long and heavy train it doesn’t cause any issues.
As it is, this example is for 5 amps, which is almost double the rating of your connector, but if you double the pins as I suggested, you will have 6 amp capability.
After reading your example now I am not sure need to double up then. Even if I did the wire coming off the battery is only 20 gauge and if I was really pulling 5 amps I would be overloading that as well regardless of what I do on the connector.
Ahh, the stock lights have different voltages… but they are probably both referenced to plus or minus (that means one side of the light is connected to battery plus or ground)… and you can indeed put resistors or regulators inline. Since you have the battery in the tender, again, all you need is the “signal” to turn them on and off from the loco.
Yep, so you see by the example the differences in the wires are.
Maybe I can help you further with the wiring… what remote control system are you using? Personally on a battery powered loco, I would replace all lights with LEDs, but I can appreciate that you may not want to tear into the loco to replace lamps.
Let me know what the R/C system will be and we can draw up a schematic for the lights that will make your life easiest.
Greg
Greg I am going to be using the new RailPro system. You are right I am not really looking to tear into the loco to replace the current bulbs as USA trains put many of these bulbs into tight spaces that only the bulb and not an LED will fit into. I am curious btw how is your Hudson coming along as I checked your site but you stopped writing about it around this time last year.
My current thinking is only going to use two wires on connector for power to the control system and use my other 4 to control read headlight and markers.
Well here is my recommendation:
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leave the lights in place.
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disconnect all the lighting wires
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RailPro recommends using the 5v source, which is great, your 5v bulbs will be happy, and you will need resistors in the lines for the 3 volt bulbs, or if they are the markers, wire the 2 markers in series and give them 5 volts instead of 6.
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as I said before, ALL your lighting uses a common, the +5 volt line is most convenient for your wiring, unfortunately it makes it so you need 3 wires into the tender for your headlight and marker lights (headlight, marker lights, and common +5 volts).
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if you REALLY wanted to double the power wires, you could probably use the plus from the battery in the tender as the common, but you would need much larger resistors on the 3v bulbs and a good sized one on the 5v, and double check with the railpro guys… I’m pretty darn sure the negative common in the system is the same.
I’m referencing page 7 of the manual, assuming you are using their LM-3s-g module.
Greg
Yes I am using the LM-3S-G module. I was planning to wire markers together in series and do the +5V. I will still need a resistor for the Firebox though as its a single bulb.
if you need help on calculating the resistors let me know…
Greg
I am confused. If the receiver is in the engine, and its controlling the headlight and class lights, then why do you need to run wires to the tender for these functions?
I must have misread, or misunderstood something.
David that is funny I thought the same thing so I went looking for a pic. of the tender and yes it does have a headlight and markers.
Richard
yep, and the light on a tender is called a headlight…
and Joseph referred to “marker lights”…
Greg
Ok. Now I understand.
Why not use the connector supplied by USA for those features, and add a 2 pin connector suitable for carrying the battery power to the receiver and motor?
Ok so in case anyone else reads this thread in future for info the bulbs used in engine all appear to be 6V bulbs so I do not have to wire them in series. David in the end I am going to be adding a new connector between the engine and tender though will probably be for one of the lighting connections.
Am I referring to the two tender red lights wrong? I thought they were marker lights as classification lights would be on the front to designate if the engine was a extra train or a regularly scheduled one.
Joe just just spit balling here you have been around, this is not your first rodeo, but if you ever think about smoke would it not be better to put a connector from the battery with flex 18 gauge wire?
Richard
oh as far as the marker lights go it’s all good just did not think about that not a lot of g gauge with tender markers.