Fixing 9V track pickups with electrical tape?

[Modeltrainman]

The rubber stuff on my 9V track leads has worn away, quite a lot. Will electrical tape be enough to fix them? A new lead is expensive, and I really don't want to have to move everything to Powered Up. Is there a good aftermarket solution?

[SD100]

I got "Liquid Electrical Tape" and just gave them a couple coats of that.

SD

[XG BC]

i think i have read somewhere that you can somehow open the pickup piece and the plug and solder new wires to them you should defenitely try that. the normal electrical tape (atleast in my experience) is not a good fix for that as it falls of quite quickly due to low stckiness of the tape. i have never tried the liquid stuff though.

XG BC

[Toastie]

10 hours ago, XG BC said:

open the pickup piece and the plug and solder new wires to them

+1 that is the way to go.

I also used another invasive approach: Cut the wire about 5 cm off from the pickup brick, put heat shrinking tube over each deteriorated lead and push the tubing as close as possible towards the pickup brick, apply heat and then exchange the remaining wire, do the same at the 9V 2x2 terminal plate.

Best
Thorsten 

[Modeltrainman]

Thank you, everyone. Soldering was what I was afraid of hearing. I'm not skilled in that area, nor do I have the dexterity.

[Sunil766]

Hi,

not sure if I get this correclty - but you can replace the wire between the speed regulator and train connection. There should be YT tutorials and threads in this forum. (I did this myself recently on overall 5 cables)

Use a very small screwdriver, better two, to force the 2x2 brick's bottom plate out of the connection hooks on the side. You can then remove the bottom plate and have access to the wire. 

The wire is kept in place by a cable or strain relief and makes contact via two small pins that poke through the isolation. 

Use standard twin-lead 0.5mm² for replacement. The bottom plate just clicks back in place.

The track connector works similarly - I felt it was easier to open but needed more effort to be put back in place. On this piece you have to remove one screw and small plastic part before you can take out the old wire.

Remember that the track connectors are both the same piece - but you don't need to turn around the cable by 180°, as they will be facing each other. Stay focused while attaching the new cable so that you don't have to do it twice (like me - for two cables).

BR

[Toastie]

35 minutes ago, Sunil766 said:

Use standard twin-lead 0.5mm² for replacement.

That is the key issue though. There is really no standard on this. Yes, 0.5mm2 is fine, but the insulation material should also meet - more or less exactly - the dimensions of the cutting "blades" mounts. I had a not so nice time with that. It worked about 1 out of 3 times. Could very well be me. But you need to pay very close attention to the correct alignment of the blades - otherwise you'll just flatten them when putting the assembly back together.

Best;
Thorsten

[Sunil766]

I absolutely agree with you. I flattened a few of these pins myself, but they survived. Had to re-open some bricks too as it didn't work the first time. The wire is very cheap though in comparison to replacement parts (which will have the same issue). 

Nevertheless, soldering the wire to the terminal is quite intrusive - as you said - and irreversible.

Soldering right outside the brick doesnt solve the issue of breaking isolation right at the brick. 

In my opinion, replacing the wire is less effort than playing around with the soldering iron and shrinking tube ;-) rephrased: the soldering poses a much higher risk of messing it up with my fingers! 

[Toastie]

3 hours ago, Sunil766 said:

Soldering right outside the brick doesnt solve the issue of breaking isolation right at the brick.

Just to explain: I am cutting the messed-up wires about 5 cm away from the terminal brick. Then remove all the messy insulation as far as I can get. Then rearrange the wires a bit and twirling them - at the same time making sure to not cause any shorts. Then apply 4,5  cm of properly matching shrinking tube and push the tube as far as possible into the terminal (that was about 1 mm max.). Then apply very carefully heat - shielding the hot air from reaching the brick. Then solder the new wire onto the old wire, which is now sticking out far enough for rather secure iron operation  

From some experimenting (opened up a terminal brick after this treatment) I believe that the issue of the deteriorating insulation hardly affects the functionality of the terminal within the brick, as the fouling plastic is not pushed around.

But once again, the crimping method is far more superior. It just needs the correctly matching wire (I had a hard time in finding) and some experience in clamping the wires down appropriately.

Best
Thorsten