I've opened this thread to document how I converted my Marklin 34780 ICE3, which is a Delta version of this train. I understand that this process can also be applied to the 37780 and 37783 ICE3 trains, but I don't know about the later 3778x trains, as they may have different interface boards. There are several threads in Stummis forum and this forum that discuss this conversion, but no one thread actually documents the entire process. Also, Juhan asked me to open a thread about the conversion, so here it is!
Here, we have a picture of the train as you would see it in its box.
The motor is actually in the Restaurant Car, which normally sits in the middle of the train, (you can expand this set with the 437x7 series of ICE3 coaches) and it is in this coach that all the modifications are done - none are necessary in the end cars. This next picture is a close up of the Restaurant car.
Followed by one of the car with it's lid taken off.
And with the car on it's side
This picture shows the replacement items that have to go inside the Restaurant car.
Marklin do not make a replacement MTC board anymore, so a 3rd party board has to be fitted. The only place I know of where this board can be obtained is from this website:
http://www.modellbahnwer...com/eigenentwicklung.htm at a cost of 59 euros.
Edit: 03 February 2016 - it seems that the above link to the Modellbahnwerkstatt site no longer works, so you will need to email them -
http://www.modellbahnwerkstatt.comAs the dealer does not accept Paypal, A kind friend who lives in Europe offered to have the boards sent to him, and he then sent them on to me, as he was able to transfer money to the dealer much easier than I could from NZ. Thanks (you know who you are!) I say 'boards', because I actually got 2 of them. The other one is for forum member NZMarklinst, who is going to convert his 37780 to full Loksound. As you can see, I purchased an 8pin version of the Loksound 4.0 with mfx, as this is the interface used on the new board. I wasn't able to get the ICE3 version of this decoder, so opted for a Universal decoder, to which I uploaded the ICE3 sounds with a Lokprogrammer.
This next picture shows the Delta board removed from It's mounting posts.The green and blue motor wires have to be desoldered, as do the 5 wires at both ends of the coach. The plastic diffuser over the light is removed, along with the bulb, and these are fitted to the new board. The wires at both ends are resoldered on to each end of the new board - there are markings at both ends of the new board clearly showing which colour wire goes where.
This is a picture of the new board mounted.
The decoder is mounted underneath the board with some doublesided tape that is already fitted to the board. The decoder is plugged into the 8 pin socket - be sure to line the pin with the orange wire up to the socket on the board with the black dot next to it.
You need to put some tape over the hole where the motor wires go, as some heatsink grease has to be applied to parts of the new board, along with a copper heatsink to prevent certain components from overheating. This next picture taken from the instructions show how that is done.
It is not completely clear from the markings on the board as to where the green and blue motor wires should be soldered, so I emailed the dealer, and he kindly emailed me back this picture.
Both NZMarklinist and I thought the Green wire went to the right of the 'U' in Grun, rather than the bottom right of the 'N', so this picture was quite invaluable. The violet coloured wire (AUX2) from the decoder also needs to be soldered to the point on the board marked 'Vio' - that solder point is clearly marked on the board. This wire is needed to correctly switch between the front and rear pickup shoes when reversing the train - see later pictures for how the decoder is programmed for this.
I also removed one of the red dividers in the passenger compartment to make room for the speaker (the speaker that comes with the decoder is a 23mm one). You can see in this next picture where I mean.
That pretty much takes care of the hardware modifications, now the decoder has to be programmed with a Lokprogrammer.
I uploaded the ICE3 sounds to the decoder using the Lokprogrammer. I then used the Lokprogrammer to make the following settings to the decoder.
As mentioned, the settings in the above picture are required so as to correctly switch between the front and rear pickup shoes when reversing the train - FS (F) and FS (R) are set to physical outputs Aux2 (1) and Aux2 (2) respectively. I think this can be done only with the Lokprogrammer - I didn't try my Ecos to see whether that would program these settings.
I also made a few extra settings changes, such as setting the decoder address to 43 (for BR403), also the description (BR403 ICE3), and also reduced the maximum speed to 160, as the train was way too fast for my liking. As forum member Clapcott told me that he thinks this train has a Faulhaber motor, so I used the preset defaults for that motor type. The train seems to run nicely as a result.
That's pretty much the whole process. If anyone intends to convert their own train, I hope this guide has been of use.
Flash Dave has asked me to take a video of the converted train in all it's glory, so hopefully I'll get around to doing that soon!
Edited by user 03 February 2016 04:27:36(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
