has anyone ever installed a decoder for a walther’s gp 9m loco? if so,did you have to isolate the motor?any problem’s? how about an ihc 0-6-0 premiere steam loco.i wonder if the decoder would go in the boiler area or the tender? thanks to all .terry…
I have an IHC 0-6-0 shifter that I converted to DCC. It ended up as a very smooth running loco.
I installed the decoder in the tender. I also soldered wires to the tender power pick-up strips that rub against the axles. The reason I did this was to get additional reliable power as the friction bolt method was not good enough for DCC.
And by getting reliable power from the tender axles it made the loco much more reliable when crossing long dead frogs on my switches.
I also ground the flanges on the loco down so they did not hit the Atlas 83 spikes.
I replaced the tender wheels so this made them RP25 compliant.
It was quite a bit of work but it turned out to be worth it as this engine really does run nice after these improvements.
I’ve converted two of the Walthers GP-9M locomotives and the motor is already totally isolated from the frame, so the decoder just needs to be soldered into place.
IHC steam engines are easy to install, too, because their motors are also isolated from the frame; however, mine were all larger than an 0-6-0. I managed to get the decoders into the boilers by using dime-sized TCS M-1 or similar decoders from Lenz.
thanks gentlemen.all i need are the two decoder’s.silly me[:I]…the loco is a 0-8-0.today has been a bad day[:(].terry…