Hi,

This is my second conversion and this loco belongs to a forum member.

I've been entrusted to convert a 3084 BR 050 loco.

This is the first time I've converted a loco with an ESU magnet and I've tried and tried to get the loco running properly without any success comparing it with a 5 pole motor.

the change over to a 5 pole motor will commence in the new year.

The assignment included: ESU sound decoder, gearlight, led front and 3 led's in the tender.

I've made suggestions e.g. to add a 28mm speaker into the tender instead of the standard 23 mm.
Also the sound decoder (ESU V4) which was supplied I will change over to a 21 mtc instead of an 8 pin plug.

I have recommended and would do the same for any forum member,m when buying stuff or converting a loco get in touch with the forum and asked the forum for advice before launching a do it yourself buying spree.

You can save yourself a lot of money and in the end get the right stuff for it.

Having done so many conversions over the years I can recommend what is required and sometimes by cutting corners you may find you are paying more for it when it actually comes to convert them and the most important part is you achieve an outcome with 100 % satisfaction and unless you buy one of the proper sets you'll never know.

To explain further what I mean by this when converting a loco and you add different gadgets to the loco you need more wires and by using more wires the thickness of the wire than becomes an issue.
For instance by adding a gearlight (led), a smoke generator contact and a headlight (led) you need 3 different wires and one common wire and, resistors.

Marklin supplies bulb holders when buying a conversion set and it has wires attached to it.
By converting a loco like I do these wires become obsolete because a.) they are not long enough and secondly they are too thick.

to give you some sort of an indication what I have done and how I've achieved this there are a few photos attached.
the tender has 3 dummy lights and by carefully drilling a hole by hand, there is just enough room to insert a 2mm dome led and this is done 3 times.
the tender has a U-shaped weight in the front and the back, I've removed the back to be able to insert the led's from the inside and also used a 28mm speaker instead of the standard 23mm and the 28mm speaker wouldn't fit into the space with the metal being left in there.
the metal bar will be used again by bending it on both sides and make it into a flat piece and this will be glued inside the tender (top section of coal reservoir) to keep the weight of the tender.
the speaker has enough room and with the bottom groove it sits nicely in the tender upside down.
the wires of the Led's have been diverted sideways and underneath it and 2 connections are visible.
the bottom plate of the tender has been slightly modified by bending the support arm for the original reversing unit downwards and an upright section at the back has been removed.

The 21 mtc adapter plate will lie on the floor and the sound decoder is than attached.

The loco has at the moment an ESU perm.magnet but will be exchanged with a 5 pole motor, You can see I have inserted a ball bearing on the other side of the motor and another ball bearing will be inserted into the new brush plate.
the gear light is my own construction and this time I've used 6 micro led's, the smoke generator contact has been separated from the front light and a light socket has been fitted/Led.

I think it has more to do with the CV values of the ESU decoder than the bruhes and armature, although I take your point and thanks for your hint.

Looking Good john