Hornby Int'l AC to DC conversion

[ellocoloco]

I recently saw on Ebay an Electrotren Club Edition EMU that I had always fancied. It was at a great price but there was one problem - it was the AC version! I have never converted a loco from AC before, however, I had read posts recently on Spanish Forum, Forotrenes, and didn't think it would be too difficult. The main problem would be getting insulated wheel-sets to replace the uninsulated ones the model was equipped with. As we all know on this forum - getting spare parts can sometimes be a challenge! After investigating the availability of the parts I would need - four geared wheel-sets, two with traction tyres and two without, and 8 normal metal wheel-sets - I decided to go ahead and order the model. 

 

The EMU in question is RENFE 470.070, a 3 car unit in the one off blue livery it carried between 1999 and 2000 and affectionately known to Spanish rail fans as a Smurf! It is ref: ES3616 produced for Club Electrotren in 2015.

 

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The model arrived quickly and is equipped with an ESU Lokpilot V4 - all the later Electrotren AC models were only offered as AC digital or AC Sound. As this decoder works with both DCC and the Marklin digital system, I put wires across the skate and wheels and connected up the Multimaus to make sure it worked whilst I waited for the spare wheels to arrive. Once the wheels arrived and I had a couple of hours spare, it was time to go to work!

 

Apart from needing to change the wheel-sets, there was a small amount of rewiring required. In AC set up, the skate is wired to the right motor terminal and wheels on both sides are wired to the left motor terminal. Both bogies on the EMU power unit have pick ups. There is only one skate - on the rear bogie of the power car. I carefully cut the wires from the RHS bogie pick ups as close to the PCB connection as I dared. I then disconnected the wire from the skate on the rear power bogie and connected it to the RHS pick ups and soldered the front RHS bogie wire to the RT spot on the PCB.

 

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(Above shows where the wire from the front bogie was cut close to the LT spot and reattached to the RT spot. The rear bogie wires attach to the other end of the PCB. The missing screw on the RHS never left China!)

 

I had removed the decoder before starting work and put in a 21pin blanking plate from an Electrotren 352 in case I had done anything stupid! On straight DC I then fired up the Duette and gave it a run. A success! Very smooth and with lights. I then popped the decoder back in, replaced the body and bogie sides and connected up the Multimaus. All good and with lights individually controllable

 

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I imagine it would be fairly similar to convert any of Hornby Int'l's AC models in a similar fashion and in future if I could only find an AC version of a model I wanted I wouldn't hesitate to do this again - if I could get the wheel-sets. 

 

I also think it would be possible to convert a OO DC model to AC digital without too much trouble once a skate was fitted - one screw - and the pick up wires re routed. 

 

Hopefully this will be of interest in case anyone picks up the wrong version of something nice while on holiday.....now I just need to build a layout to run it, along with all its buddies.

[RDS]

What a great Project. Thanks for sharing.