Upgrade MTH F3 ABA with FT ABA
Page 2
Conversion Process and Photos - Leading A Units
Plan placement of FT parts in F3 leading A unit.
Facing Left
Facing Right
On leading FT A unplug smoke unit and save for another project. Cut brown and green wires leading to trailing unit harness.
Strip Lighting and Control boards plus motors, speaker, volume control, and harness from FT A Unit. Strip same from F3 A Unit. Swap coil couplers. The big hole in the top of the Silver Pilot needs to be enlarged for coupler plug and wires. Use a Unibit and enlarge the hole to 3/8".
Drill mounting hole for FT lighting board in F3 A unit. Drill a #39 hole between the 2 old mounting holes. Tap the #39 hole with a 3mm - 0.50 tap. Drill and tap holes as needed for control board and volume control. Install Lighting and Control boards plus motors, speaker, volume control, and harness from leading FT A Unit in leading F3 A unit. (The battery/BRC rides better standing up secured with double sided form tape.)
My sound volume wires broke off during handling and had to be resoldered.
Do final routing and mounting of harnesses between leading A unit and trailing B units after all parts are mounted on F3 leading A unit.
My variable voltage feed to each two motor unit has a 30V 4A Polyswitch in line for short circuit and overload protection. A 3A would probably be OK.
Do trial run in Conventional. Read Amps as you apply voltage if possible. Mine didn't go on the first trial because the rear motors in both units were installed backwards and I had to reverse the wires to those motors before they would run in the right direction. Motors in these photos are wired correctly with yellow wires on left and white wires on right.
Run with DCS to be sure all functions as good as it did before the conversion.
Now load the sound file you want, change the engine name, and your off and running!
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