Märklin Sr2
The modification starts with some
of many Märklin's Swiss Re 460 - locomotives. The Swiss version
has a right hand drive steering cabin unlike the Finnish Sr2 and
there are some minor differencies in the skirts, but according
to my opinion there is no need to for changes, one can consider
these things himself.
A good way to get a loco at a low
price is to buy it from German Ebay -web auction. There are constantly
tens of Re 460 locos for sale, price. Especially bargain is the
red Re 460 from starter kit 29851. It has a high-efficiency propulsion
motor and mfx sound decoder. These units are for sale in Ebay
for about 150,- EUR. A list of Märklin's Re 460 locos you
get from here.
The modification work starts with
disassembling the loco. The roof can be painted separately. In
the Finnish version there are no covers for pantographs, but the
covers are easy to remove by simply pulling up. The roof is painted
with light grey and the walls except the skirts with white paint.
The fixing points of covers are
removed by drilling and filling the holes with e.g. Tamiya Putty.
The red colour is made with self
made water decals. A better image with higher resolution can be
downloaded here.
I printed the image with Epson Photo790 -printer on Bare-Metal Foil Co.'s Clear Decal Film sheet,
which are sold by Tieto-Nikkari
Oy in Helsinki. After printing the paper is sprayed with clear
lacquer.
After installing the decals the
loco is air brushed with clear matte lacquer.
This unit did not have originally
a sound decoder, but one was left over from a Ae 6/6 in the Dr12-project.
Because the prototype is a Swiss engine, the light function are
not standard. Normally the decoder has a grey lead for forward
light and a yellow lead for backwards light, orange is the common
positive return lead for electronics. However this decoder has
both grey and yellow leads for both directions (1 & 2). The
function is described in the table below.
|
|
yellow 1 |
grey 1 |
yellow 2 |
grey 2 |
|
forward |
on |
on |
off |
on |
|
backward |
on |
off |
on |
on |
The lights in the engine are done
with leds on a separate circuit board, the function is in the
table below. Again orange is the common positive return lead for
electronics.
|
yellow lead |
lamp 2 on |
|
grey lead |
lamps 1 and 3 on |
|
function (fx) lead |
lamps 2 ja 3 on |
The connection depends how the
lamps should function. In this unit the lower lights are always
on and only the headlight is changing with the direction. In this
case the yellow 1 lead in the decoders first end is connected
to the fx-lead of the circuit board and the decoders grey 1 is
connected to the yellow and grey leads of the board. The yellow
2 lead of the decoders 2nd end is connected to the yellow and
grey lead of the board and the grey 2 lead of the decoder is connected
to the fx-lead of the board. Orange leads are always connected
together.
The decoder and speakers assembled.
The braun ground lead from the track is good to connect to both
boggies.
The engine ready to run.