FleetLighter Installation Pictures: Bachmann Class 158/159

Submitted by Martin Perry, London UK Having a number of 2- and 3-car Bachmann Class 158 and 159 DMUs which I wanted to run on my DCC layout, the issue of controlling the head and tail lights had to be solved. I decided to use the Train Control Systems T1 and FL decoder products throughout for convenience, ease of use and economics. The 3-car sets comprise a centre motor coach and two identical driving trailers. Installation of a TCS T1 decoder into the centre motor coach is reasonably straightforward, the two function wires being unused. Installation of TCS Fleetlighter decoders into the driving trailers presents more of a problem because the head and tail light LED mounting board is difficult to remove without breaking up the driving cab glazing shell which obscures the fixing screws. The 2-car sets comprise a Driving Trailer and Driving Motor Coach which can be dealt with in a similar manner to that described here.

Unscrew and spring the body shell from the trailer chassis. This reveals the dropper resistor board lightly glued upside-down to the plastic seating shell.

Unplug the bodyshell from the chassis and set aside. Gently lever off the dropper resistor board revealing the resistors underneath.

Unsolder the red/black wires leading below to the track pickups. Retain the red/black wires to the small connector.

Replace the 470 ohm resistors with 1K resistors using the lead from one resistor to connect across to the other resistor. This provides a common positive input connection for the decoder blue wire.

Unscrew and gently lever off the seating shell from the chassis. Unscrew the bogie pivot screw to reveal the red/black wires connected to the wheel wipers. Unsolder the wires and discard.

Using a double-sided adhesive pad, mount the FL decoder to the seating shell bulkhead and feed the FL red/black wires through the holes in the floor and chassis. Solder these wires to the bogie wheel wipers.

Reassemble the bogie, chassis and seating shell, leaving the blue, white and yellow function wires for connection to the dropper resistor board.

Solder the FL blue wire to the junction of the two resistors and reglue the dropper resistor board to the seating shell. Solder the white and yellow wires to the connector wires. It doesn't matter which way round as this is easily adjusted by programming the decoder CVs after completion.

Reconnect the bodyshell and reassemble the driving trailer. Since DCC programming establishes a 'forward' and 'backward' direction for the unit, keep in mind which trailer is to be at the front of the unit and which to be at the rear. I marked the roofs of the three coaches with a small black dot to identify forward-facing. When placing on the track all three must face the same way.

Since I can run two units in coupled multiple, it is necessary to be able to control the head and tail lights independently so that the lights facing each other over the coupling are extinguished. I chose the following function controls by adjusting the TCS wire remapping facility in FL decoder CVs 35 and 36. F0 - Headlight forward direction F1 - Taillight forward direction F2 - Headlight reverse direction F3 - Taillight reverse direction For the Class 158 2-car unit, I installed an FL decoder in the Driving Trailer as shown here and a TCS T1 decoder in the Driving Motor Coach. The blue, white and yellow wires of the T1 decoder were connected in the same way to the dropper resistor board as those of the FL decoder but CV 34 remaps the yellow wire.