With much trepidation, I finally decided to take the plunge and convert my layout to DCC. I have sent a few locos out for decoder installation, but I would like to try one myself… an EASY one. I recently purchased an Atlas Trainman GP38-2 because of it’s “plug-and play” technology. NOW WHAT? There is so much information out there, little of which I truly understand, that the more I look at, the more confused I get. Can someone tell me what exactly is the easiest, most basic decoder to “plug” into this engine? Nine pin…eight pin, harness…no harness…it’s all Greek to me. From what I can figure out, a TCS T-1 would seem to be easy enough, but when I go to the TCS website the “harness” thing gets thrown into the equation…I think! Please help! What decoder should I get?
Any decoder with a 8 pin interface will just plug in after you remove the 8 pin jumper plug… If you plug it in backwards, the loco will run conversely to it’s direction as indicated on the throttle and the lights will not work. Beyond that, nothing will actually happen to the decoder.
I would suggest the Digitrax DZ125PS or DH163PS…
David B