Bachman HO DCC onboard locomotive

[bales1dog]

A friend gave me a HO GP35 with "DCC ONBOARD". He said he could not get it to run on his DC layout and asked me to try it on mine as it is also DC. It would not run on my layout. The box says it will run on DC. Is there any way to check to see if this is set to only run DCC or even verify it works without finding someone with a DCC system?

[jward]

most likely whoever owned it before turned off analog conversion. If you have a dcc system you can turn off the ability to run on straight dc. I often do this with mine because sometimes a momentary short on DCC will trick the decoder into thinking it is running on DC track. Since DCC has full power on the rails at all times, this results in the locomotive taking off at full speed with no ability to control it. Disabling analog conversion will prevent this from happening.

If this is the case, you have two options.

1. find somebody who has a DCC system and ask them to enable the analog feature. You will be able to run on DC, but it will take about half throttle before the locomotive begins to move.

2. remove the decoder altogether. If the decoder is a plug in type, there should be a dummy plug in the box that you can plug into the receptacle in place of the decoder. If the decoder is hard wired, you'll have to rewire the locomotive.

[bales1dog]

thanks, i'll try that