Easy DCC Hard Wiring Tutorial - Make Old Locomotives Work Like New!

Today Jenny is showing you how to hard wire your old DC locomotives so they can run perfectly on DCC. Let's make our old locomotives work like new!
Our sponsor today is Train-O-Matic, makers of DCC chips and accessories that just work right out of the box. Visit their site at www.train-o-matic.com to see their full range of products! Also available through UK stockist: www.tramfabriek.co.uk/decoders...
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Chapters:
00:00 Video start
00:18 Introduction
00:47 Sponsors
02:44 Overview
03:36 What you'll need
06:47 Opening the locomotive
08:04 Isolating the motor
10:54 Soldering new connections
12:37 Adding the DCC decoder
17:34 Removing the old wiring
19:59 Neatening up the wiring
21:29 Locomotive reassembly
22:28 Running test
23:28 Conclusion
24:55 Thanks and sponsors

[@denzil932]

Well Jenny I have bitten the bullet and bought the Sound Decoder and wired it in using your video as Guidence. I will get back to you once I have tested it, possibly next week. Your video was spot on, many thanks.

[@Flymochairman1]

Well executed and not slow with the soldering iron. I found the wires very fine so much care, on some chips anyway. Good one Tim Krinski. Great demonstration and many thanks again, Jenny. Keep safe. Cheers!

[@JenniferEKirk]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mels1811]

Brilliant loco Jenny

[@lms_steve6693]

Excellent video as usual Jenny. For those contemplating a dc to dcc conversion, remember to make sure your model runs well on dc first. Add extra pick ups if needed, (especially on tender drives). DCC Concepts sell a wiper pickup pack and they are superb.

[@stevie156478]

Ive been soldering for years on locos and other stuff and for the first 16 minutes I'm thinking why does Jenny need the nail polish for this job, but it makes sense now!

[@JenniferEKirk]

There is madness in the method (or vice-versa)!

[@michaelcohen7183]

Great video will have go at doing my loco's.

[@richardswiderski4985]

Great video Jenny that loco is just begging for a sound decoder.😊

[@Robin.s-Rails]

Hi, an interesting presentation. I have fitted an AED-8PH DCC Concepts AE Model 8-Pin Harness 4 Function Mini Decoder together with the associated AED-SA1 DCC Concepts AE Model 2-Wire Stay Alive into my tender driven / ringfield motor powered Hornby Duchess of Sutherland. This has significantly benefitted its running properties and would make an interesting and useful presentation for you to do on KZbin. I have also fitted these two items into the cab of my Hornby 00 GWR Dean Single “Achilles” with similar benefits. The latter required me to drill a small hole between the cab and boiler and to de-solder then re-solder the wires to the 8-pin plug (I only re-soldered the 4 wires to enable the locomotive to run). Another potential KZbin presentation. I now de-solder the wires on the 8-pin plugs of decoders when hard wiring them into locomotives and thus am able to re fit the plugs in order to claim on warranty should this be needed.

[@cwmpencwrwmodelrailway1801]

I did almost the same conversion a month ago - although I was using the non-streamlined Hornby Coronation (with the same chassis design) and I wired in a 6-Pin DCC socket. Would have been useful to see this video before I did mine and it should help others

[@allanmorton6022]

Excellent. I even asked for this topic and you delivered! I will definately be trying it once i get a another decoder. Thanks so much.

[@Teesbrough]

Thanks Jenny. I’ve watched this through and can see it looks very simple. However, I’m still utterly bamboozled as to what you have to connect to what, where and why. For example, are there specific spots on the motor to which you have to solder the wires? How do you know whether you’ve linked to the tender pickups correctly? If you play the video back to yourself but listen to the sound without looking at the picture you’ll hear lots of references to ‘this’ and ‘it’ without explaining what those things are. That’s what’s confusing me, sorry. Thankfully I don’t need to do this task yet as I’m still on 100% analogue but I’ll study this video again and others like it before I do eventually hard wire a loco for DCC.

[@JenniferEKirk]

I’m just soldering to the points that the old wires were removed from. These are the solder points that connect to the motor’s brushes. Connecting the tender pickups is a case of taking care and doing one at a time to avoid getting them swapped over.

[@lindsaybancroft4629]

Thanks for sharing Jenny, very informative 🚂

[@SHGPMedia]

I've got small fleet of old DC locos that i need to upgrade to DCC, once i get around to sorting a layout. No doubt ill be referring back to this

[@MIKELANETT120]

Omg that loco is just gorgeous

[@johnbaker6208]

I soldered a socket to some locos and put a blanking plug in first so I could test my wiring before risking a decoder and its easier to change decoder afterwards.

[@BarnabasJunction]

Nicely explained but please note cutting the 8 pin plug off voids any warranty. I personally would have used a harness which allows you the option of reverting the loco back to DC with a blanking plate if required. Always best to future proof the job.

[@JenniferEKirk]

In this instance I decided to keep the installation at its simplest.

[@BarnabasJunction]

@@JenniferEKirk just as simple with a harness, maybe even simpler. Same wires, same connections. When installed just plug in the decoder like any normal dcc Locomotive 👍

[@allanmorton6022]

​@@BarnabasJunctioncan you recommend a suitable harness to get ? Thanks.

[@BarnabasJunction]

@allanmorton6022 plenty available from multiple suppliers, just search for 8 pin dcc harness.

[@AndrevwZA]

That is really a good looking loco.

[@davidstaples8511]

I cannot figure out which 8 pin decoder from train-o-matic you have used.

[@ianhaynes5898]

That all went very well. I fitted A DCC thing to an old Hornby Fowler 4p and it goes OK, not capable of a smooth start up and leaves something to be desired at slow speed. Thinking of trying this with a tender drive Princess now.

[@l1a146]

Thankyou so much. I have only just recently moved to the dcc and have been slowly replacing my locomotives with dcc ready versions as I felt retro fitting older locomotives with dcc myself was a bit of a black art or seemed quite expensive to get done. Seeing how simple it actually is, will give some of my older hornby locos a new lease of life. Ive been told however that its not really possible with the older split chassis bachmann locos. So Im curious to know your thoughts on those too, Please Jenny.

[@JenniferEKirk]

I’m glad it’s helpful. Split chassis locos can be done, but are a lot harder.

[@charlie1872]

Hi Jenny, here are a couple of questions for you: 1. In terms of “old” locomotives, would this work for an old Triang Princess? 2. Does the motor have to be a minimum type eg 5 pole etc 3. As above if the dc loco does not run well, will the conversion help? 4. As all my locos are DC the cost of conversion could be inhibitive. What is the cheapest chip you recommend for the budget minded and do they work on all locos? Big questions but important . thanks Charlie

[@denzil932]

Jenn, I have just wathched your video and yes it has encouraged me to get out the same loco as yours, which has not been run for 20 years and get it converted to DCC. I would like to put a sound decoder in at the same time. Any advice please.

[@georgemartin408]

Nice and easy under that spacious body moulding, but try it with a rebuilt Merchant Navy! No space at all in the loco, so it’s necessary to transfer wiring into the tender which is more tricky. Perhaps Jenny you could do an eg video on one of these - fitting a Hornby Bluetooth decoder, speaker and power bank. It’s a conversion I intend to try, but the transfer into the tender (for space required) needs working out.

[@JenniferEKirk]

That sounds like a great idea for a how-to guide. I'll look into it!

[@rawstonemodelrailway]

Hi Jenny. Great detailed video as always. Just got a question about wire size. I've got one of these and one of the pickup wires came off inside the base keeper plate. I was hoping to extend the wires slight to make future servicing easier as there isnt much wire to play with. So was just wondering what wire size can be used for the red and black pickup wires.

[@davidveness6716]

Very helpful, but I am trying to convert an n gauge with brushes and I think I have to use the Digi Hat approach, to totally isolate the power feed to the motor. Is that right ?

[@garylewis2248]

Hi Jenny, I have a few steam loco's that are not DCC ready. Hardwired them just like you have, I am now wondering if there would be space to swoop to a hard wired Hornby HM7000 8 pin sound decoder with the sugar cube speaker and powerbank ?

[@ianturvey3894]

Very informative video Jenny. I have, in the past year, started to convert some of my old locos to DCC. The thing that I’m not sure about, is CV programming. I don’t know about things like start voltage and what the various CV’s do or what values are etc. Have you already done a video on this subject?

[@JenniferEKirk]

I haven’t, though I have found that high quality decoders often don’t need CVs changing as out of the box the running is pretty good like you saw for this loco.

[@peterhealy9044]

I don't have nail varnish. Anything else I can use

[@JenniferEKirk]

Nail varnish is quite cheap and is readily available from many shops. Alternatively, you can get liquid insulation from some model shops for a substantial increase in price. It is essentially the same substance branded differently.

[@robertgates7686]

It would have been useful to mention that its best to prove you have not your wiring mixed up by checking you can read the locos address on your programming track before fitting the body and before trying it on your layout. Decoders do not like their wires being wrongly connected and may be destroyed in a wiff of blue smoke.

[@Gilstrains]

🚂🚞🚞🚞🚞👍

[@JamesPetts]

If you are going to the trouble of hard wiring, you might as well put a stay-alive in while you are about it.

[@chriscox4023]

Two things, the wire strippers aren’t good for the fine wire and the loco has an articulated pony truck which is not on modern models, a great shame as it makes a better runner over some point work

[@johnpapworth433]

I just cant solder :(

[@JenniferEKirk]

Practice makes perfect, and so does a higher powered soldering iron. A lot of modern soldering irons are strangely low-heat, which just doesn't work and it can make you think you can't solder when really it's just a problem tool. Don't put yourself down.

[@johnpapworth433]

@@JenniferEKirk I know - I need to give it a go :)