almost have all my loco’s fitted with dcc except for two athearn loco’s.anyone put decoder’s in athearn’s coca cola and john deere loco’s? they run very well on dc but can’t be run together in the dc mode as athearn used two different type’s of motor’s…gold clad in one and a dark greyish colored motor in the other.thanks for your input.terry…
I put an NCE decoder in my Athearn GP35. I taped it on top of the top motor brush clip with double-sided tape. The motor and motor mounts had to be pried out of the chassis. Then I bent the prongs which connect the lower brush clip to the frame up flush with the clip. I soldered the motor leads to each motor brush clip at one end. I put a piece of electrical tape along the lower brush clip to insulate it from the frame. I drilled a hole down through the fuel tank and drove in a screw under which to put one of the track power wires. The other track power wire got soldered to one truck and a jumper between trucks. I installed a 14v GOW lamp at each end of the loco with double-sided tape. The toughest part for me was keeping all the wires away from the flywheels. The loco runs very well, although I need to spend some more time adjusting the stating voltage and low speed kick parameters. I’ve got a small Athearn switcher that may be my next victim.
Perhaps you will get some input more specific to the locos you have. Hopefully they don’t take too much current for the decoder to handle. I guess the other consideration is cost. I purchased my engine for $27 6 years ago. The decoder cost me $20. But I learned something and had fun putting it in.
Last night I was looking at puting a decoder in a Kato NW2 switcher. Every cubic millimeter of volume inside the shell of that thing is full of metal. I either have to remove some metal somewhere or put the decoder in the cab. Either way, I will need to cut channels for wires between the weight and the shell. It may not happen …
Jim
thanks jim.surely someone has installed decoder’s in these loco’s.think they’re f7’s or f3’s.they have the new hex drive’s in them and since i don’t run dc anymore i might as well put decoder’s in them so i can run them.appear’s to be a lot of room for a decoder in these loco’s.terry…