5 Pole Ringfield to DCC conversion.

[LesXRN]

Hi folks.

I was recently gifted an unused Britannia, Western Star, after a friends husband passed away. It lived in a glass case and has never been run.

As it's a super detail model, combined with the fact that it would be nice for my friend to see it running, I am thinking of converting it to DCC sound. I would most likely use a Zimo decoder with a cube speaker mounted in the loco body. I also would prefer to remove the tyres from the tender wheels to prevent track contamination.

So, have any of you done this mod' & if so, was it worth while.

Many thanks. Les.

[96RAF]

I have swapped full metal cogged wheels from a diesel front bogie to replace the tyred wheels on a ring-field motor bogie and that worked. I also rigged an extra pickup on that side. I haven't tried that on a steamer as I don't have one and finding full metal wheels could be difficult.

Conversion of the various ring-field types is well covered by Brian Lambert whose site is linked to in the useful links sticky post.

[LesXRN]

Thanks for the advice 96RAF. It's certainly worth having a go in this case. Watch this space.

[ntpntpntp]

Personally I'd rather keep the tyres and the degree of traction they provide.   I've run model trains in several scales from Z to G since the 60s and never ever observed any "contamination" caused by having traction tyres.   Mind you I've never let any of the track cleaning fluids anywhere near my trackwork as I know some of those can destroy tyres.

[LesXRN]

I did acheive this conversion but rather than repost what I added in 'What's on your workbench@, I'll just add a link to the topic;