DCC

[llens]

Has anyone out there fitted a decoder to a Big Hauler 93939 Street Car.

Any info would be greatly apprecited.

[jestor]

Since nobody has responded, I'll give it a go. While I haven't installed a decoder in the street car persay, I have installed in other locos with no DCC interface, and the basic steps are the same. You'll need to disassemble the motor block to get to the power pickups that go to the motor. The idea here is to isolate the motor from the power pickups. You are going to feed power from the pickups into the decoder(2wires) and power out of the decoder to the motor(again 2 wires). Any decoder's instructions show a diagram of what wires to use(color coded). Of the 8 wires on the decoder, just 4 are used to control the motor; other wires go to the lights so they can be turned on/off.  I use ESU LOKPILOT non sound decoders because they are one of the few non sound decoder that employs BEMF to provide super low speed operation and CONSTANT speed control. It would not be any more difficult to install a LOKSOUND decoder as the speaker is already wired on and has an inclosure so you might just place it on the floor inside the car to have sound, if desired. Since you don't state what experience you have in installing decoders, my aim here is to provide some basic theory that applies to putting a decoder in ANY  powered car that doesn't have a DCC interface.  Take it apart and study the wiring to figure out where the power comes in from the wheel pickups, and what wires feed to the motor, so you can route power into the decoder and out to the motor. I should think that the street car's wiring might be pretty simple to digest. 

[llens]

Thanks jestor

After reading your post I think I will have a look at the wiring in the street car first then see if I can download some decoder fitting instructions that detail the connections and colour coding.

[wedressler]

I've installed Lokpilot Basic decoders in a number of small G-Scale novelty items 9 handcars, etc) with good success.  However when I put one in the Bachmann Railcar, I did not appear to have speed control. It was full on or stop. I installed as per the instructions. Adjusting CV's for starting.max voltages did not seem to help either. Are there noise suppression capacitors that need to be removed or do i have to turn off back EMF? I'm awaiting another decoder to test in the car.

Bill dressler

[wedressler]

Mike- Yes I meant the rail TRUCK. It doesn't have an 8-pin connector. The track leads go to screw terminals on the board. You simply  have to disconnect these and interpose the decoder between the rails and motor.

The capacitors on the Bachmann 2-8-0  and the Heisler were causing me to fry decoders on my MTS system. They were removed at the suggestion of others in this forum and this resoved the problem.

Bill Dressler

BTW -the 300 milliamp  figure I cited for the rail TRUCK in another post came from another forum and not Bachmann.