Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Nice setup.
I don't have a plug in engine and I actually want one but I love the idea of converting one of my Wilesco engines (D16).

How do you adapt an engine to go electric?

The plug in guage gizmo, can that also be used to limit the power?

There is a bit of labor involved , you need to remove the boiler from the fire box ,depending on the model can make is difficult...or a bit less difficult , if the boiler is soldered in place ,well you have to unsolder it, anyway once you get the boiler removed you will need to drill a hole in the (near) bottom rear of the boiler for the Brass sleeve (soldered in) that holds the slide in cartridge heater., I prefer 8 mm by varying lengths (longer , generally more powerful) ,affix cord to said heater, it is possible to have an onboard (built in) voltage reducer.
Re:plug in gizmo...that is plugged into a homemade variac (voltage reducer) which will reduce the voltage (only). the electronic voltage\watt device does only that...tell you what voltage\watts you are consuming.
The D16 would be an excellent candidate for a electronic conversion.