Six pin DCC decoders?

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I have five Bachmann N scale steam locos, two "DCC ready" Spectrum, two late pre-Specrum and one 2-8-0 dynosaur, as well as three newer "DCC ready" tenders. I'ld like to get into DCC, but haven't seen advertised any decoders that would plug into the six-pin arrangement in these tenders. Clearly I'm missing something here. The drop-in type decoders I've seen all seem to have an 8-pin NMRA socket. What gives? Do I have to go splatter solder all over everything?     webcaptn

[skipgear]

The six pin plug in the tenders is to attatch the loco to the tender. You have to solder the decoder in place of the jumpers on the light board in the tender.

Unfortunately, there are very few true plug and play steam loco's. The FVM Hiawatha and IM AC-12's are about the only thing of recent that uses the 8 pin NMRA socket. The Walthers 0-8-0 had a socket but there was no room for the plug in the tender, you still had to solder your decoder to their dummy plug.

You will have to learn to solder and hard wire decoders for the most part.

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The six pin plug in the tenders is to attatch the loco to the tender. You have to solder the decoder in place of the jumpers on the light board in the tender.

Skip, something doesn't compute here. The tender is already attached to the loco by a two conductor "live" drawbar and there are no jumpers on the six pins protruding from the circuit board in the tender. I see nothing on the circuit board I can identify as a jumper to be easily desoldered and replaced with decoder leads. As for soldering, I'm an old-time clunky solderer from the days of vacuum tubes and point-to-point wiring. I find this delicate stuff frustrating, hence my hankering for plug'n play. Why doesn't Bachmann make some of this info a little clearer and more accessible to us ignorami out here in the great beyond?       

[skipgear]

The new loco's with DCC installed have a 6 wire "umbilical cord" between the loco and the tender. The spectrum tenders are intended as replacements for these loco's.



The Phosphorbronze tabs on the closest side of the light board are the jumpers that are to be removed to install the decoder. The male plug sticking up from the board is where the loco plugs in.

The problem is, all of the loco's that you have were designed before the idea of a universal tender connection was born at Bachmann. If you want to install a decoder in the tender, it will require at bare minimum, insulating the motor and running two wires from the motor into the tender. If you want lighting, two more are needed and on the early loco's, you will need to add two more wires from the pickup on the loco back to the tender as they were not designed with a live drawbar. A total of six wires.

The DCC ready loco's are designed to that the decoder installed in the boiler. There is a small weight that can be removed to make room for the decoder and all the wires you need are under that weight. The only exception to that is the J-Class which was the first loco to have provisions for the decoder to be installed in the tender. It even has room for a speaker in it.

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The problem is, all of the loco's that you have were designed before the idea of a universal tender connection was born at Bachmann. If you want to install a decoder in the tender, it will require at bare minimum, insulating the motor and running two wires from the motor into the tender. If you want lighting, two more are needed and on the early loco's, you will need to add two more wires from the pickup on the loco back to the tender as they were not designed with a live drawbar. A total of six wires.

Thanks guys, that clears it up some. So that means there must be a 6-wire harness with a female socket on one end somewhere in the Bachmann parts inventory n'est-ce pas? Anybody know how to access that part? How about some maintenance/repair/schematic literature on this stuff? Any suggestions? Or is that the Holy Grail we're all in quest of? Well anyway, thanx much!

[skipgear]

I'm in the process of writing an article for the next N-Trak steam handbook explaining the procedures for adding these tenders to locos that they were not intended for. I have started using the 6 pin harness arrangement on all new kitbashes so I can swap tenders between loco's easier when experimenting.

You can see on this tender where I cut the plug out of another tender to use in my kitbash.