Quick And Easy Track Power Pickups From ESU (123)

OK, you folks have been asking me for track power pickups that were available off the shelf so i dug around and found some that I think will fit the bill. these are made by ESU who also make LokSound decoders. In the video I'll show you how I installed them on my HO scale caboose but you can just as easily install them on anything from N to G without any problems and it only takes a few minutes for each.

[@w.rustylane5650]

I lit up an REA (Railway Express Agency) coach and made my own pickups out of some copper I salvaged from an old computer. Instead of a single LED, I used a mini full wave bridge rectifier, a 3300uF capacitor and some strip lighting LED's that can be cut at every third LED. I think i used about 12 bright white LED's on the strip. I had to hide the cap in spot that couldn't be seen through the windows. The LED strips have an adhesive backing and I stuck it to the top of the coach. I don't use any other components in the circuit and it works flawlessly. The LED strip lighting already has the ballast (current limiting) resistors mounted on the strips. Very easily done. I like those ESU pickups and I'll be giving them a try if I can find a vendor. I've got several Riverossi coaches I want to illuminate. I've already changed out the incandescent lighting on several coaches and used the LED strips. Thanks for posting. Cheers & 73 from W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee

[@alainaarrhodge5900]

I just bought my LokSound power pickups. As soon as they arrive I'm going to install them on a rotary blow that has a weird and unreliable power pickup system. It was driving me crazy at a show last month. Thank you so much for this DIY video. You're amazing!

[@w.rustylane5650]

Revisiting an old video. When I super glue to plastic or delrin, I always scribe cross hatches with my A-proxo knife to give both surfaces to bond. I don't use an X-acto knife, just my A-proxo knife. Cheers from eastern TN

[@trapdriver7006]

Excellent video Larry 😀👍🇬🇧

[@donh8833]

Love everyone of your videos.

[@garylewis3815]

Hi Larry another great informative video. Has given me an idea for adding pick ups to the tenders of some of my locomotives which only have the driving wheels collecting power from the track..😃👍

[@TheDCCGuy]

Good idea!

[@tireroastersgarage]

Thanks Larry!

[@georgedeary9377]

Great videos great information.

[@nycart256]

Thanks for a great video. I could not find these since everyone I checked is out of stock . I did find a small company called "Model Train Technology" that sells floating brass strips used for track power pickups in HO and N scale. They also have good installation videos on how to install these. They are reasonable in price and work fantastic on my N scale cabooses and other rolling stock for interior lighting, marker lights. and end of train devices. They also sell a lot of other lighting products for buildings. signals, passenger cars, rolling stock, and caboose lanterns HO and N scale with fiber optic lighting for n scale, and a lot of other stuff.

[@TheDCCGuy]

I’ll give them a look.

[@danf3981]

I use these for passenger cars and they work great

[@chriscox4023]

Just a point of note, OO uses the same track gauge as HO. The only difference is that it is out of scale compared to HO

[@MosriteCharlie]

You could do the same thing using a Kadee #5 spring.

[@chugwaterjack4458]

Very interesting project. Looks like I'll be busy with quite a few of my coaches, and even a tender or two. Can you detail the bridge rectifier and source a little for us? One minor thing, the intense use of "go ahead and..." becomes very distracting, sort of like white noise. And if that's the worse thing in my life, I'll still be a happy man.

[@terryblackman6217]

Hi. So simple yet so affective. These would also work for extra power pickups for the motor. Love the video, good presentation, you now have a new subscriber. Thank you. PS. I am now going to play catch-up with your previous videos.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Time for a binge weekend, enjoy-Larry

[@w.rustylane5650]

I finally got my ESU 50707 wheel pickups ordered. $8.95/8 is not a bad price. Shipping was only $4.00. Thanks for posting this as I have several coaches and cabooses to light up. Why do you use 4 pickups? Two would be enough, 1 for the positive to the light and the other back to the track from the negative. Cheers from eastern TN

[@TheDCCGuy]

I think you’ll find that with that arrangement power pickup might be unreliable.

[@tomroise9426]

Great job Larry. Love the idea of cutting the board. Thank you for sharing the resources for this idea. Why did you connect both trucks ? When one clearly appeared to work well?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Redundancy

[@petermenningen338]

I could see how you could add a second led (red) on the caboose or other rear car with a simple flasher circuit (555) to make a end of train device for a different type of car like a tanker, hopper or box car with an enclosed space for the circuit.

[@TheLocutus70]

I miss cabooses on trains. and open autoracks.

[@TheLocutus70]

That was great.

[@sidnzrael2433]

Another great vid. These could be used on a scratch built locomotive, for pick-up? Thanks Larry.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Be careful as the metal wiper material wraps around to the other side of the board. If installed on a metal truck this could cause a dead short.You would need to install them on a thin piece of styrene or other insulating material to prevent this.

[@sidnzrael2433]

@@TheDCCGuy Of course Larry. The wrap-around would make them strong too. Using styrene as mentioned further in the comments, makes for a lot of sense. Again, thanks for the warning/caution.

[@adityasubramanyam8565]

Hi Larry, great video and very informative for a beginner such as myself! I had a couple questions regarding these pickups: 1. Would these work for locomotives as well? 2. Are there any multi-wheel pickups commercially available that'll let you pickup from all wheels any given side for to ensure continuity of the current in case one of them loses contact for some reason? Thanks!

[@TheDCCGuy]

I don’t see why they wouldn’t work on locos. As for the second question, you might check www.sbs4dcc.com, he used to offer various configurations but I don’t know his current stock.

[@Blue68Camaro]

Thanks for the video. Sure makes it easier with the CKT board type than the ones that are all spring metal with axel wipers. FYI Did you know in all your videos when you touch the track with your fingers it generates a buzz in the video?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Yes, I keep trying to remember not to do that but it keeps happening. I had to cut several segments from the video because of that. The remaining 2-3 were not significant enough to worry about. I find it odd since I am not connected to anything electrical and the camera and mic are isolated and run off battery power so it must be generating rfi that the mic picks up.

[@antonbruce1241]

@@TheDCCGuy Thought about wearing a grounding strap, or would that be too cumbersome?

[@HungryGuyStories]

I'm loving watching all your videos and learning a lot of new things! :-) It's gonna take me forever to watch them all! Do you plan to cover block detection and signaling someday?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Someday.

[@peterainsworth8466]

Nice video Larry. Is the little brass plate held on by the factory solder? (We pronounce the "l" down here Australia like you would saying "folder" - otherwise it would be stock feed 😉) Anyway, If that's the case you'd have to be careful not to melt it too much when applying the wires or it might come off? Or is it attached some other way?

[@TheDCCGuy]

The whole wipers assembly wraps around the board and may be glued on like copper cladding on a PC board. there are also 2 small wholes under the solder blob that go through so I suspect the solder makes a bridge between front and back.

[@peterainsworth8466]

@@TheDCCGuy that's great thanks. I'm not that good at soldering so I wouldn't want to ruin it. These look like a good solution for a passenger set i have - an Australian transcontinental train through the desert called 'the Ghan'. A Google search will give you an idea.

[@chip9177]

just watched one of your videos that had the gizmo you can solder on the underside of a spur & lights up when spur is hot. why not use one (or more) of those inside instead of the circuit & cap? Just seems simpler, im sure i am missing something though

[@nateshon3eastbroadtoprailr448]

There are other, cheaper, homebrew options for this. One I can think of off the top of my mind is modified Kadee coupler centering springs.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Yes, and I showed several of them in the previous videos. However some folks prefer an off the shelf approach.

[@steve87thpsap]

Question, metal wheel sets I guess are electrically isolated? They must be or there would be short correct?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Correct.

[@JonathanRBermanMDBocaRaton]

THe video was quite intuitive. What about heavyweight trucks with 3 axles. I think there is a "room" problem The mounting of the pickups is on the "bar" in the middle of the truck. I dont think there is enough clearance between the "bar" and the middle axle. Thoughts?

[@TheDCCGuy]

I think it will depend entirely on the construction of the truck itself.

[@Longshadowsmodeltrees]

Great video Larry, you would have cut them for N scale. Bob

[@TheDCCGuy]

Yes, that likely would be necessary for such a narrow truck. But it is quick and easy to do. I don’t know about the thickness of the cross member, it may require addition of a styrene mounting pad. Have you tried these?

[@dkaustin98]

Can you do a comparison review between the Digitrax DS64, the NCE 0151 Switch8-MK2 and the Digikeijs DR4018 16 Channel Turnout Switch Decoder? Looking at cost and performance? Which one is going to give us the most while saving us money controlling our Tortoise or Cobalt switch motors? NCE has an accessory button board and Digikeijs has accessory boards that go between the device and motors. Thanks, Den

[@TheDCCGuy]

That is a tall order. Also the capabilities of these devices differs so I would venture that it is more often a matter of what job you want the device to do. For example you can program routes and do other fancy thing with the DS64 whereas the Switch8 is essentially a dumb accessory decoder that cannot be programmed to do anything beyond powering Tortoises and similar devices. I have never looked at the DigiKeijs equipment although I do have one of their command stations to evaluate, if I ever get time.

[@katelynstoesz1655]

What is the part for the light board? do you have to do both ends of the car or can I get away with doing just 1 end?

[@TheDCCGuy]

You need to watch the video linked at the end of this one where I showed how to build that light board. It’s always a good idea to watch the while video as I put stuff like that there.

[@brentmueller9442]

I'd like to add programmed lighting to a dummy locomotive. I can see how these pickups would work for connecting power, but is there a decoder available for dummy units that could provide lighting options like rotating beacons or directional lighting?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Yes, Digitrax, TCS, and NCE all off lighting decoders. SoundTraxx used to offer one as well so check with them. You could even put one of their Soundcar decoders in it.

[@CynderHound]

You could also buy an fx only decoder from esu now, it comes with all the lighting and sound fx without the motor control

[@kirkdoleary]

I looked back at the other videos of making the circuit with the rectifier, but don't see the one shown in this video? can you give some insight on where to find this circuit?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Try #120

[@Syclone0044]

Atlas O Cabooses come with a factory grease on the backs of the wheels where these electrical wipers are. What is that for?

[@TheDCCGuy]

If it has lights onside and power pickups on the backsides of the wheels I would guess it is conductive grease but if not I guess it is just factory gunk.

[@ralphrenzetti22]

That’s all great but you didn’t mention the device on the top with the light. Who makes it and what’s it called, is there an part number?

[@TheDCCGuy]

You must not have watched the whole video. At the end I provided links to the earlier videos where I showed how to make the lighting circuits. So go back and take a look.

[@nicholasjohnson6133]

What is the rolling resistance like on these? I have some superliners that do not have pickups that I am trying to light.

[@TheDCCGuy]

That depends on how you adjust them. They are flexible and have to be bent to make contact with the backsides of the wheels. You want them to be just tight enough to make contact without creating extra drag. When properly adjusted they shouldn’t create more drag than the same types of power pickups on commercial locos and some rolling stock.

[@KingTrump2024]

Does ESU make one with longer wipers ? Those look too short for use on the Athearn Bombardier passenger cars.

[@TheDCCGuy]

No, but you should be able to adjust their position to allow for the spacing. You could also add a small styrene square to the truck to extend them if needed. As I said in the video be flexible.

[@farmerdave7965]

One of the best videos for Athearn Bombardier cars ... kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYWToqOHqNWpmNE

[@antonbruce1241]

As much as I hate to be a pain, but..should you change wheel sets if the current wheel sets have ribbed backs? The ribbed backs won't transmit the power properly or evenly. Other than that...I think I'll get a few sets of these for power pickup on each car in my passenger set.

[@TheDCCGuy]

There is a small raised nipple pressed into it near the end of the wiper and that might catch in the ribbing. So I would think the ribbing might be problematic or make a clicking noise. I think it would depend on how wide a flat area there is between the ribbing and the edge of the tire.

[@antonbruce1241]

@@TheDCCGuy Ya know...it would lead to much less stress to just replace the wheel sets. Still...I'm going to get myself a few of these. And thanks! P.S. I've subscribed.

[@marystralkus1319]

What is the rectifier the pickups are going to, can I buy or make. Thanks in advance

[@TheDCCGuy]

Rectifiers convert DCC to DC. I included a parts list in the descriptions for the various circuits.

[@060550bd]

Where do I get the rectifier that you talk about and how do I determine what size to use? I have LED lights made by Evemodel when I use them in my HO engines they flicker - I o not want to have that happen in my engines let along my cabooses.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Did you watch the previous video where I showed how to build this circuit and read the description where I gave parts numbers and sources? It’s video #120.

[@geraldjones2278]

I watched your video and ordered some of these pickups. I installed a couple of them and then measured the current pickup using DC power, I measured over 12VDC coming from the track but only one or two VDC coming from the wires attached to the pickups. What did I do wrong?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Check the back of your wheels, they might be oxidized or have paint or some other substance on them. I usually sand the back of mine with an emory board or sandpaper. Also make sure both your track and wheel treads are clean. Finally recheck your solder joints, cold colder joints can have some resistance.

[@geraldjones2278]

I have a very perplexing problem. I have done everything you suggested. I checked for cold solder joints by attaching power leads to the pickup end and the meter to the wires soldered onto them. Good power. I sanded the backs of the wheels and the treads to make sure they were clean. I checked to make sure I was getting power to the backs of the wheels. I do. Every time I put the pickups to the wheels I still get no power. I have spent two hours today trying to figure out what is going on and it's not making any sense, I get power everywhere but between the backs of the wheels and the pickups. I even tried to clean the pickups and still get nothing.@@TheDCCGuy

[@TheDCCGuy]

Flip the truck or car on its back and shoot a couple photos. Email them to [e-mail] and I’ll see if I see anything.

[@tomroise9426]

Is the trick isolated ??

[@TheLocutus70]

What's that between the truck and the car body? Some kind of washer?

[@michaell.maloney4026]

Kareem Spacer

[@michaell.maloney4026]

Kadee...

[@TheDCCGuy]

Kadee makes those fiber washers to use as spacers for adjusting the body height. That way you can get your couplers set at the right height. They come in two thicknesses and are either red or gray.

[@YatesMissiondotcom]

I have an HO caboose that I've added power pickups to, wired to a simple LED light that has a resistor. My HO scale engine stalls/quits running almost instantly when I put my rolling stock caboose with power pickups on the track. Why is this happening, I don't know what I'm doing wrong? Be nice, I'm new.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Check to make sure you wired it correctly and do not have a short circuit.

[@bonpitt55]

Hi where can l get that circuit board with light. 🎉I am a subscriber to your KZbin channel. Thanks

[@TheDCCGuy]

If you watch the video to the very end I provided links to 2 other videos showing how to build the lighting arrangement.

[@bonpitt55]

@@TheDCCGuy I have a question about my layout I need some help. I will send you a drawing of my layout. What is your email address? Thank you Larry

[@safetran50]

Will his method work for soundtraxx sound car?

[@TheDCCGuy]

What kind of installation are you thinking about? Push-pull consist, passenger cars, stock car? Basically though if you have power pickups on more than one car it should work.

[@safetran50]

I’m doing it for a boxcar. Thanks for helping!

[@krishsoundar3857]

what are those tiny pink washers called? ... cannot locate them online

[@TheDCCGuy]

Thise are KD spacers used to adjust the height of a car. Look for them on the KD website. They come in 2 thicknesses.

[@krishsoundar3857]

@@TheDCCGuy thank you .. that helps with my search.

[@gmcliff555]

what is the purpose of the "bridge Rectifier" ?????

[@TheDCCGuy]

Converts DCC to DC. Watch the earlier videos (101 & 120) on the lighting circuit.

[@antonbruce1241]

@@TheDCCGuy And it also makes sure the polarity of the power going to the lighting board is correct no matter which direction the car is running, especially for we non-DCC folks.

[@railbuilderdhd]

Couldn’t you cut these from a thin sheet of brass or other metal yourself. Bend them to pickup power from the wheels and attach as you show here. Never thought about this before but the wheels must be isolated from each side or you’ll get a short.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Watch the earlier videos, that what I did!

[@bqbt]

Tell me about the circuit board?

[@TheDCCGuy]

I covered the circuit board in earlier videos on lighting rolling stock.

[@dencanski]

Why not 4 wipers?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Watch it again starting at 12:30.

[@JonathanRBermanMDBocaRaton]

so you put power pickups for both trucks. Why would you do that? Dont you just need to get power from one truck?

[@TheDCCGuy]

Yes, but 2 trucks spread power pickup out over a larger areas in case you hit a dirty spot or dead frog. It also gives much better pickup-you wouldn’t be satisfied with power pickup on one set of wheels on a locomotive model would you?

[@swiv99]

this is nice, but when will little nano gas engines replace all this electrical nonsense

[@ricter591]

Thanks Larry!