Wiring for DCC Ready Spectrum tender, 4 6 0 Baldwin, sound decoder

[willyhenry29]

Have the Bachmann Baldwin 4 6 0 n scale steam loco, had a digitrax sdxn 136 sound decoder installed, after install, when on track,  loco does not move. Sound comes on, light  comes on, goes off when digitrax zepher express is put into reverse. Assigned adress 4 on quick decoder set up.  But no response from motor. Could it be that the wiring on the circuit board for motor wires correct? There are 6 wires running from motor and soldered to the circuit board, 4 black ones along top of motor from front of the loco  and 1 black and 1 red from motor at the back end. Tried to upload pic but couldnt. Also, is this circuit board old version? Bought a new Bachmann spectrum dcc tender,  see it has 6 pins standing proud from circuit board. Current board does not have that? The decoder wires have been soldered to tabs running along 1 edge of the board? I was wondering if I should swop out the old tender and circuit board and try the new one. But where do I attach the 6 wires running from loco to new circuit board. Diagrams I have seen say attach decoder wires to the 6 pins. Where do i attach the motor wires on the board? Or, is whatever issue there is with original tender  circuit board possibly fixable?

[rich1998]

Cannot help with wiring but you need a photo hosting site to upload photos to forums. Search for free photo hosting sites for 2021. You will easily find them.

Rich

[ramarkn]

Well, right now I'm playing around with the circuit board of a 2-8-0 with Soundtraxx Econami plugged into the board. There is actually writing on the board which is a bit hard to decipher but I've now tested and confirmed.  Most likely this is the same for all their boards.  With the engine's front pointed to your left,  the left side of the engine is closest to you and the right farthest away, that is standard convention. There may be writing that says R, M+, L+ and L, M-, L-.  The pin closest to you should be L track power (black or -), the next is the left motor lead (gray, M-), the next is the healight (white, L-), the next is common (blue, L+), then the right motor lead (orange,M+), then the farthest is the right track power (red, R).  Most certainly the two outer pins are the track power, if you have a multimeter you can test the headlight, touching the common L+ with the red probe and the headlight L- with the black.  That should light the headlight, leaving the other two as the motor leads by elimination.

I also have the circuit board from a 2-10-2 and it has the same writing on the 6 pins.

[DaveGard]

The first thing I suggest is talking/contacting whomever did the install. It sounds as if the decoder is not properly wired, or the decoder is bad. The factory decoder/PCB in the 4-6-0 tender should look like this (with loco at the right):



The six wires coming from the center of the board would be connected to the loco, from top to bottom:

Left track
Motor minus
Headlight minus
Headlight plus
Motor plus
Right track

When installing a new decoder, the factory PCB should be "split" along the perforations in the middle, and the back half (the decoder) removed.

Seven wires from the "new" decoder are then attached to the solder tabs "behind" the wires. The tabs are labeled, from top to bottom (using NMRA standard wire colors):

Left track (L, black)
Motor minus (M-, grey)
Backup light minus (LB-, yellow)
Light plus (L+; common function plus, blue)
Headlight minus (LF-, white)
Motor plus (M+, orange)
Right track (R, red)

Two purple wires from the decoder should connect to the speaker. if the new install includes a capacitor, it should be connected between the common function + (blue wire to the capacitor +) and ground (green/yellow wire to capacitor minus).

Good luck!