I installed a NCE D13SR decoder in an older, split frame 4-6-2 loco, this was not my first venture with the exact loco, but my first ever hard wire using this decoder. In the past I installed TCS and all went well.  I had to do a little more fumbling and weight cutting to install the decoder. 4 of the wires broke off at the decoder pads. Oddly the 3 wires I soldered for functions 3 and 4 for ditch lights with digitrax wire were fine. In the end what I found out was NCE is apparantly using non lead solder which is brittle. The other thing I didn't care much for was the coating on NCE wire, is about the hardest I ever worked with. I used a 30 ga wire stripper I purchased, just to let others know, but with the stress needed to strip the wire may be enough to pull the wires from the decoder if you slip. I desoldered all the NCE wire pads and replaced the wire with the more flexable digitrax decoder wires and my normal lead solder. In conclusion, my first adventure with NCE hard wire decoder was a bit more than frustrating. You simply can't bend them too much, more than twice before they break at the solder pads. I'm quite satisfied though with the decoder performance, but in the future will stick with TCS for hard wire installs. Jim

"The Favorite Spot"
http://www.thefavoritespot.com/
Jim

The hardest part of installing sound is where a speaker will fit with the enclosure, and it's best to install the largest speaker possible. I find the high bass speakers sound the best to my ears. Sometimes you may have to hog out some of the shell or some of the weights.

Here is a link to Tony's Trains with Soundtraxx decoders, just to give you an idea, and if you look on his products page it will show other manufacturer's of sound decoders. I like Digitrax for many reasons, which I won't go into detail. Also on Tony's site, they have guides with pictures of how to install decoders on several different models. Jim

http://www.tonystrains.com/products/soundtraxx_tsunami.htm

I'm glad you found it, been thinking about it but I didn't do a search, just trying to figure when the last time I had such a problem. Yes Bachmann is good to their customers and I'm sure you'll be up and running shortly. Good Luck, Jim

Just a little tip, you should cover your tracks with card stock as an example. That's what I use cut 1" wide, a foot long or whatever the 11" card stock is and I use two pieces of the foam double face tape cut 2" long, a piece at both ends and in the middle of the 1" piece of cardstock so as to fix it to the rr ties. You'll have a lot of hand cleaning to do otherwise no matter how careful we think we are, to remove the glue, caulk, dust, paint, and other ground materials from the rails. Might be alright to weather your cars with the grime, but why. Take the cars off the tracks or move them to a safer place and they won't get in your way and get all messed up. You don't have to fill in all the cracks around the rocks you've installed it looks natural with the cracks. When I was a kid I used to love to crawl in those cracks and explore. It's natural!

Looks really good if this is your first attempt. Rocks are all different colors and shapes and cuts. I use broken ceiling tile, glued and stacked for ledge, I see a lot of that here in WV.

There are so many versions of that loco, is it older or a newer version. Is it HO or N scale. Does it have a split frame. Does it have a light board. Does it have an 8 or 9 pin plug already installed from the factory.

I don't understand why it has no instructions, I've never received a decoder without the installation instructions included.

Just in simple language the red and black wires are for the electrical pickups from the wheels. The orange and gray wires go to the motor brush's. The white wire goes to the front headlight along with a resistor, usually 1k ohm resistor. The blue wire (common wire) goes to both front and rear lights. The yellow wire again usually with a 1k ohm resistor goes to the rear light.

If you have more wires than that, it's a four or 6 function decoder. The other wires are for such things as ditch lights, mars light, rear strobe, rear tail lights, flickering fire box for steam engines, cab and or to light up road numbers, etc.

If you need pics of the install, again we need to know more detail. Jim

It sure does get ridiculous don't it...........I got a loco that you can even hear the engine compartment door open and close! But who doesn't appreciate the sound of the engineer opening his thremos of coffee and pouring it to drink a little coffee. I even got a pullman hollering what the next stop is. I can't remember what function buttons to push, only like was said in previous posts, the horn/whistle, and the bell are the ones most important to me, 1&2.  But on other functions, not on sound decoders, but the mars and ditch lights on the motor decoders, but now I got them to work on auto for whatever period of time I choose. Some of the whistle sounds I've heard are terrible and can do without. Sometimes I like to silence everything and just like to watch and listen to the wheels on the tracks. Another reason I like Digitrax sound decoders, if I don't like a particular default sound I can change it by downloading the sounds from their download page and choose what I want with Digitrax PR3, I can erase a default complete engine sound and download a different one. Not only that I can mix and match sounds. Not only that, I've been told I can go to a train yard, and digitally download any sound I want and load them in my puter, upoad them and then download them to the loco using the PR3 program. Jim

LOL I have 3 train sets still in box's, one nice passenger set, lucky me with the short passenger cars, all sets still have the original track and transformers. These are from the 50's, lucky if I get $25.00 per set. LOL again, my grandchildren don't even want them, they want DCC like I got now! I got an old friend who showed me a Lionel steam loco, and he thought he had an "antique", meaning $$$$$ dollar signs, the only thing miss'n was the cow catcher, he got mad at me when I told him he'd be lucky if he got $20.00 for it without the catcher on. Jim

The only thing I use the old cheap cars for is practice beating them up and weathering them, but nobody wants them unless I put decent trucks with metal wheel sets and kadee couplers and new coupler gear box's on, about $15.00 per car, hardly worth the effort.

I too had a lot of difficulty when I first attempted to play with the CV's. The first and most important thing to do was to experiment, and I was as eager as you. Most guys are reluctant to even try to change cv's, afraid of messing it up and destroy the decoder or losing the factory settings. The documentation that comes with the decoder is very important like what's been said. However to keep track of all the cv's, I found a simple solution it's called JMRI/decoder pro. It keeps track of all the cv changes I have made on each individual loco, it keeps a roster of all the loco's I've entered, right now about 35 entries. If I have the same decoder in a different loco and it runs great the way I programmed the cv's, I bring up the page on my roster with for instance #16, the roster entry for the loco I aready reprogrammed the cv's to, then I put the new loco entry #36 on the programme track, add the new loco to my roster, return to the programme for #16 and hit the button "write changes on sheets", and it's done. I don't have to go through all the cv's in order to change each individual one, maybe just a little fine tuning when I test on the the layout. I don't have to remember what changes I made or write them on scraps of paper with crossed out entries, not knowing for sure what I did. With the hit of the button I can go back to a loco I entered 5 years ago and see what I did. The JMRI software is free, the digitrax decoder pro 3 interface cost about $75.00 and money well spent. And MUing with decoder pro is the best I ever used for programming to the same speeds, it's simple and easy.
Introduction to Decoder Pro http://vps880.inmotionhosting.com/~modelt5/assets/video/mrh/JMRI/DecoderPro1_player.swf
JMRI download page
http://jmri.sourceforge.net/download/

Hello, sometimes I put an engine on the track and I get similar results for whatever reason, especially with an engine I haven't ran in a while. Even while I keep a list of what address the engine was programmen the last time I ran it.  When I do a factory reset however they work. CV 8 to 008 resets it. With EZ command put the loco on the  track, hold down button 3 and the Stop button the same time for about 2 seconds and release both buttons, the red led should flash. Press button 3 and you should be good to go! You should see the engine move a tiny bit, that tells you the decoder is reset to default 3 and should run. Hope I helped some. Jim

I'm looking at this one, I have never heard anything but good about it. A little pricey...
http://www.litchfieldstation.com/xcart/product.php?productid=226001&cat=42&page=1

Some DCC systems are finicky about setting the components up and plugging them in before you apply power from the outlet. Might be a factor!

Oh this forum is gonna hate me! I know what it's like to try to salvage our old (50 years or so) "stuff" from when I couldn't afford $9.99 loco's, I bought the $6.99 line. I have a Tyco Chattanooga that I'm wanting to "rebuild" and put DCC in'er. I found a modeller on line who has done that and it is cool. The old pancake motor's are replaced with pancake motors taken out of destroyed computers, and other motors in the dvd drives are great too, so they say. Those tiny little screws that we pay .40 to a dollar each are there for the taking too, in old unwanted desktop computers, it's all good.

But you can't beat the technology today, plastics that are superior, and the detail on all loco's, rolling stock and buildings, and scenery goody's, and the internet making it so simple and enjoyable and fun. Look how far Bachmann has come and what it's done and doing to the industry, affordable DCC for those who care to just get started in DCC. and other manufacturers, LED's, track, turnouts, it ain't just good, it's far far better!
Jim

I think I know what your problem is. When you took off the gear pan, and removed the wheel train, I think you may have the linkage out of sync when you replaced it. If I were you, take the gear pan back off, "and unfold" the wheel train, look to see and make sure your axles are all parallel and look at the linkage, turn the wheels slightly until both sides (linkage) look the same, carefully replace the wheel train. I did this same thing once, and thought it was done for good, LOL that was 35 years ago, when that linkage was real fragile. Now when I take them down, I know what to look for before I put her back together. Hope this helps! Jim

Bachmann doesn't have radio control units, but I keep saying it's getting more popular, the technology is not new but the innovation and development is ever growing, so I understand!

Check these out:

http://www.digitrax.com/menu_wireless.php

Digitrax yahoo group forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digitrax/

I hope I helped, Jim