4-4-0 decoder instal

[Don Stafford]

I traded in my old standard tender drive 4-4-0 American to Bachmann Service toward a DCC-ready version. It ran reasonably well on DC so I installed a DIGITRAX SDXN136SP sound decoder. Since the DCC-ready engine was designed for a down-facing round speaker, I had to do a slight bit of exacto knife work to install the decoder's 10x18mm oval speaker. Installation went well and the decoder and stay alive capacitor all fitted inside with no further modifications required.

I wasn't able to re-set the address, but the engine ran ok on a temporary oval, powered by my Digitrax Zephyr. After a few minutes of operation, the engine's performance gradually began to deteriorate. Finally, it got to the point of occasionally stopping at full throttle.

I checked the wheels and found two problems: First, I discovered what appeared to be a very thin, transparent, almost Elmer's glue-like buildup on the two non-traction tired drivers and on the tender wheels. Second, I discovered that there was no current flow through the tender's rear axels, though they had axel wipes identical to the tender's front axel.

I haven't checked any further, but I'd appreciate anyone's comments, theories or experiences with the way my conversion is behaving.