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3 Responses to DCC Engine Conversion
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Try dxinstalls. I am planning have them do a job for me
You should be able to do this yourself. Check out the subject by searching “Upgrade to DCC” on the internet for a railroader who is willing to help you. Finding a company to do this would be a challenge. Perhaps your local railroad shop can find someone locally to do it for you?
The elements of the task are :
1. remove body of locomotive
2. cut wires to the motor
3. solder in the DCC circuit board
4. reinstall the body.
Simple in concept, but doing the small scale soldering may be a challenge.
Marty,
You don’t give us much to work with. Are your locos DCC ready? If so they may have a receptacle on the electronics board for you to simply plug a decoder into. If this is not clear You Tube can help by showing you how to do it. You will have to make sure you have a decoder that is of adequate size to handle your loco. Manufacturers websites are a great resource to help you here. Stay with the simpler installs such as Digitrax, NCE or Soundtraxx (if you want sound) for this type.
Since you don’t tell us where you are in this world I am not going to suggest any names that you can send your locos off to. A search on the web should give you lots of options. Try and limit it to your country or a anther that borders on it.
If you want to do it yourself spend some time on You-Tube viewing other installs. If you are lucky you may find an install in the same loco you wish to do. Since this is probably your first attempt I would recommend that you install a decoder in a loco that has lots of room. Be forewarned though that installing a decoder is a bit more complicated than Hardie Johnson indicates. Wires have to come from the track to the decoder (left and right is important). For a basic (non-sound decoder you then have two wires to the motor (+ and – are important) you then have wires for the lights (one front, one rear and one common). If the lights are LED’s or low voltage (3 volts) you will have to add resistors for each light to avoid burning them out when the decoder sends a full 14 volts DC to the light.
If you want sound then there are two more wires and a speaker to fit in the loco.
None of this is impossible but you should start on a simple install for practice and before putting the loco on the mainline put it on the program track. If you messed up or created a short the program track will tell you and the power level is low enough you won’t fry your decoder.