DJM OO Beattie Well Tank with Zimo sound and Stay-Alive

Kit: MX648 hard-wired; SugarCurve6; SACC16 with 2x 330uF Flat Tantalums

We love this pretty little model, and there is enough space to get a good sound, and even a little stay-alive (which is useful as it is so light!).

The boiler door is held on with little magnets, so very easy to access the 6pin socket PCB . However, this is only good for a standard decoder, not sound, so we have to remove it.

Here is our MX648 with heat shrink removed, and most of the wires removed too. We will solder the model's pickup and motor wires direct to the decoder, so we just need wires for speaker and stay-alive.

Feeling rather ambitious... perhaps we can get 3x 330uF flat Tantalums in there...?

In order to do a really neat job, it is best to remove the loco body and get the decoder connected up while it is open. Later we'll feed the speaker and stay-alive in from the front once reassembled.

Remove the suppression components from across the motor, and directly connect from the decoder to the motor terminals. Speaker and stay-alive wires can be directed forward, and recover the decoder with Kapton tape to protect.

With the body back on, we connect up the speaker and stay-alive, initially trying with all 3 Tantalums on board.

3 simply won't go in though, so we remove one Tantalum to leave the pair on one side of the SACC16 PCB.

It is very tight, but with the thin Kapton tape being used it does slide in OK.

The result of course, is a wonderfully pretty model, complete with sound, and running very well with that aid of the small stay-alive.

Please note that these guides are provided as useful resources for you, as-is. YouChoos cannot be held responsible for errors in the information, or for any damage caused to your models or equipment if you choose to follow any of the steps detailed here.