# Mantua steam tender - electrical pick up



## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

I’ll try to ask this question hopefully without revealing too much electrical ignorance. I have a DC Mantua (“Classics” red box period) 0-8-0 that suffers from poor electrical pick-up on the tender, which I think describes just about every Mantua steam locomotive I have owned. After cleaning the wheels, removing excess paint from the axle contact points on the trucks, it runs better but still not great. 

So, I want to add wipers using phosphor bronze Tichy wire. I’d ideally like to add a wiper to each wheel on the tender, but with the trucks made out of metal vice plastic, I’m not sure how to smartly mount the wipers to the trucks while properly isolating them from each each other so I don’t cause a short. OR, will I get good enough results by just adding wipers to one side of the tender and then adding wipers to the locomotive wheels on the opposite side. 

Appreciate any thoughts on either approach. If I can figure this one out, I have a vintage Mantua Pacific that suffers from the same problem. 

Thanks,
JP


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## lionellines (May 18, 2011)

If the tender floor is metal, remove the trucks and polish the base where they attach. Also clean and polish the base where the drawbar screws into it. I even cleaned up the screws on mine with a Dremel tool.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Agree, clean everything, dissemble trucks clean out the pivots where the axles ride on the truck frames. You should not need to add wipers


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## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

i don't think Mantua is the only one with tender pick up problems. Consider how many contact points there are.

besides the wheel making contact with the rails, they typically need to make contact with the metal truck frames. The truck frames need to make contact with the metal floor of the tender. The tender has to make contact with the drawbar. And finally, the drawbar has to make contact with the connection pin on the locomotive.

have you considered glueing a PC tie to the bottom of the locomotive, soldering phosphor bronze (e.g. kadee #5 springs) contacts to it the rub the insulated wheels on the loco


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

gregc said:


> i don't think Mantua is the only one with tender pick up problems. Consider how many contact points there are.
> 
> besides the wheel making contact with the rails, they typically need to make contact with the metal truck frames. The truck frames need to make contact with the metal floor of the tender. The tender has to make contact with the drawbar. And finally, the drawbar has to make contact with the locomotive frame.
> 
> have you considered glueing a PC tie to the bottom of the locomotive, soldering phosphor bronze (e.g. kadee #5 springs) contacts to it the rub the insulated wheels on the loco


Mantua uses an insulated drawbar.
Connecting tender frame to loco frame will be a short circuit.
Which brings up the possibility that someone accidentally put a metal drawbar on there making intermittent short circuits through the paint.


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## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

thanks.

yes the drawbar is not connected to the loco frame, but to an isolated connection to the motor.


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## Jima (Oct 28, 2018)

I have a Mantua 0-4-0 Shifter that has a sloped back tender. I added all wheel pickup on the on the engine and alternate wheel pickup on the Tender so that I now have 4 wheel pickup on each side. 

To the engine, I replaced the bottom cover with a pc board cover that I had soldered phospher bronze pick ups exactly like in this thread. https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/15986

On the tender, I replaced the metal body of the tender with one made from basswood. Swapped out the trucks to plastic trucks from an Athearn box car and put some Walthers metal wheelsets. I added brass tube to the axles of the wheels and soldered a wire to them for electrical pickup. 

The engine has a TCS WOW 101-KA sound decoder with a keep alive. Runs like a dream. And all my turnouts have dead frogs. 
Jim


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## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

Thanks for all of the replies. I’ve had the 0-8-0 and the 4-6-2 both apart and cleaned thoroughly (my OCD helps with this task). I have found one of the issues with the Mantua tenders is the paint on the trucks significantly hampers the flow of current. I have a small slope tender Mantua 0-4-0 where this was a problem — performance was awful and I was during myself crazy thinking it was a motor issue. I finally removed paint with my Dremel where the axle make contacts with the trucks and where the truck pivots on the tender body. Performance on that little guy is excellent now. I’ve done the same to the 0-8-0 and the 4-6-2, and while performance has improved on both, the slow speed performance is still not great (even with the Helix Humper replacement motor in the 4-6-2). The performance issues always seem to come back to the tender pick-ups, and so I figure I don’t have much to lose by trying the wipers.

Greg, thanks for the PC tie recommendation. I was thinking about various mounting options for add the wipers to the loco, and that looks to be a good option. I may just try one side of the tender and one side of the loco now and see what kind of results I get.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Disconnect the tender, use a couple feet of wire to get power from the left rail to the wire connection at the loco. See if the loco can crawl without stalling to confirm the tender is the problem.


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## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

Good recommendation, Dennis...I’ll give that a try.


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## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

Just a quick follow-up on this project. I added the Phosphor Bronze wipers to the brass pick-up wheels on the tender, and the performance has significantly improved on the locomotive. The Phosphor Bronze wire is soldered to a small piece of copper coated circuit board, which is then glued to the truck (and painted black). While I had cleaned the heck out of those wheels, axles and truck journals previously with minimal improvement, the addition of the wipers made all the difference. I’ve got an old Mantua Heavy Pacific with the same issues, and I’ll be adding wipers to that one, too.

While the picture below isn’t mine, it is the method I used (picture is also of Mantua tender trucks). The only drawback is the wipers do slightly hinder the wheel movement, but not to the point of creating excessive drag on the locomotive, as the wire is quite thin and flexible/“springy”.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

You might consider having the wiper on the back face of the wheel instead of on the track surface. Might be less friction on the rolling truck.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

I am working on adding tender pickups to a Bachmann 0-6-0 tender (I really need to get back to that project and 'Giter 'er done'!) This is the method I will be using for the pickups:


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## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

Flyboy-

Where did you get the copper tubing? I had looked into that method, but I could only find tubing in large diameters, but I might have not been looking in the right places.

JP


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## Jima (Oct 28, 2018)

I used the brass tubing that you can get at Hobby Lobby. Made by K&S if I remember correctly. Also put a drop of Marvel Mystery oil on to help lube and it also helps with preventing oxidation and improves electrical transfer. BTW this method works very well for adding reliable electrical pickup to wheels. I think it works better than wipers.

Jim


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

It is a K&S product. It's #8119 5/32 X .014 Red Copper Tube. I got it at Ace Hardware. The ones around here sell K&S metals, so it should be available at any Ace Hardware.


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## jpatti75 (Jul 31, 2018)

Thanks ... good to know! I think there is an Ace not far from my work.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Ooops! My bad! I just found the package for the tubing I used! I bought both sizes because I wasn't sure which one I actually needed. The tubing I used is K&S # 8120 1/8" x .014 Round copper tube. I hope this does not cause any inconvenience. Tubing too big can slip past the insulator on the wheelset and cause a short circuit.
Oh, I am so embarrassed!


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

McMaster-Carr out of Chicago has anything you need in any material tubing in nearly any diameter.

This company is the go-to place for scratch-building or mechanical engineering projects.


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