Harry Potter train conversion to DCC

[daveatllrc]

Has anyone been able to convert the Bachmann Harry Potter Engine from DC to DCC?  If so how did you do it and what problems came up while conversion.

[richg]

I did a Google search for harry potter dcc and found out a few have done the conversion.

Isolate the motor contacts from the frame halves. Install metal wheels and pickups in the tender.
Use a Miniatronics 4 pin connector between the loco and tender.
Follow the NMRA DCC wiring code. Some use a Digitrax DH123 decoder which handles 1.5 amp. A DZ124 decoder is quite small and can handle 1 amp.
Take your multimeter and measure the motor current at 12 volts DC. If your first DCC install, expect quite a challenge. Isolating the motor usually require separating the frame halves and putting the frame halves back together will be a challenge. Insulating spacers have to be put back correctly.

Rich

[Jim Banner]

A small typo in Rich's posting - that should be a DZ125 decoder.

Jim