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Heres a guide for all dcc newbies out there who want to convert older Athearn locos to DCC. Please leave a comment on how helpful it was in the fourm aftewards.
Simple Guide for Converting Athearn “Blue Box” Locomotives to DCC
1.1 Preparation
First before starting make sure you have the following items:
Soldering Iron
Solder
Wire Stripers
DCC Decoder (of your choice)
Electrical tape
Drill
Small Screw
The motor must be Isolated from the frame and direct wheel contact so that the motor only takes power through the decoder which regulates it.
To do this first remove the metal clip touching the contacts on the motor and on the wheels. Discard this item because we will not be using it again.
Next take the motor off of the frame and take the metal tabs off being careful not to lose the motor brushes and spring. Next the tabs need to be swapped so that we no longer have contact with the frame. Also put a piece of electrical tape over the exposure of the frame.
1.2 Wiring
Make sure there is enough space between the decoder and the shell because the decoder may get hot enough to melt the shell plastic.Secondly comes the wiring, this step is essential to the wiring of DCC and if this is not done correctly you may short things out. Make sure you follow these directions carefully.
First you will need to make a spot to connect to the frame. Do this by drilling a small hole in the frame out of the way of the shell. Secondly put a small screw in the hole to solder to.
This is the tricky part. First solder the orange decoder wire to the top contact on the motor. Then solder the grey wire to the bottom contact on the motor. The red wire gets soldered to the back truck pickup and the black wire gets soldered to the frame screw pickup. Congratulations! You successfully wired the first half of the DCC decoder.
Next is the fun part. (Make sure when wiring the lights to put resistor on the lights!) The white wire gets connected to the head light. The yellow wire gets connected to the rear light. If you want to have ditch lights the green wire goes to the right light and the violet goes to the left light. (See my Ditch light installation guide to install your own ditch lights) Next the blue wire which is the lamp common gets hooked to all of the lights.
Simple Guide for Converting Athearn “Blue Box” Locomotives to DCC
1.1 Preparation
First before starting make sure you have the following items:
Soldering Iron
Solder
Wire Stripers
DCC Decoder (of your choice)
Electrical tape
Drill
Small Screw
The motor must be Isolated from the frame and direct wheel contact so that the motor only takes power through the decoder which regulates it.
To do this first remove the metal clip touching the contacts on the motor and on the wheels. Discard this item because we will not be using it again.
Next take the motor off of the frame and take the metal tabs off being careful not to lose the motor brushes and spring. Next the tabs need to be swapped so that we no longer have contact with the frame. Also put a piece of electrical tape over the exposure of the frame.
1.2 Wiring
Make sure there is enough space between the decoder and the shell because the decoder may get hot enough to melt the shell plastic.Secondly comes the wiring, this step is essential to the wiring of DCC and if this is not done correctly you may short things out. Make sure you follow these directions carefully.
First you will need to make a spot to connect to the frame. Do this by drilling a small hole in the frame out of the way of the shell. Secondly put a small screw in the hole to solder to.
This is the tricky part. First solder the orange decoder wire to the top contact on the motor. Then solder the grey wire to the bottom contact on the motor. The red wire gets soldered to the back truck pickup and the black wire gets soldered to the frame screw pickup. Congratulations! You successfully wired the first half of the DCC decoder.
Next is the fun part. (Make sure when wiring the lights to put resistor on the lights!) The white wire gets connected to the head light. The yellow wire gets connected to the rear light. If you want to have ditch lights the green wire goes to the right light and the violet goes to the left light. (See my Ditch light installation guide to install your own ditch lights) Next the blue wire which is the lamp common gets hooked to all of the lights.
