hardwiring locomotive trucks for DCC?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Hello to all,
I am hardwiring my old Athearn locomotive trucks for electrical pickup to decoder power i.e. Red wire right rail, black wire left rail. Would it be or is it best to have pickup wires from both front and rear trucks or is doing the front truck sufficient or dependable enough for power to the decoder? I know that Digitrax makes a clip on decoder for this application, but I am an old fashion hardwire type of person (solder) and also I decided to use TCS decoders on all of my locomotives and they have no clip system anyway (not an option). Thanks all for any info as to what has worked best for you folks out there.
Regards,
Brad

2

Your issue goes beyond this: The motor is NOT insulated from the frame. You need to do this. There are several articles on how to do this on the web and in MR Magazine. There was an article in the fall of 2004 I believe.

Here’s a link to an older Forum Thread on the topic. http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=24239&REPLY_ID=242794

3

Thanks for the note. I know about athearn motors and DCC i.e cutting the tabs off of the bottom so that the motor cannot contact the frame. Most off my Athearns are going to be re-powered anyway and will have motor cradles with the motors being insulated from any part of the frame. I use my multi-meter to check for any ohm readings after a motor install to make sure that the motor is not electrically connected to any part of the locomotive but the decoder.

Brad

4

FWIW, I wire to both trucks. After all, the shell is already off and the iron hot, so why not take that very small extra step to insure reliable power pickup?

Steve

5

Definitely wire BOTH trucks. 8-wheel pickup is much better than 4-wheel pickup. By “wiring the trucks” do you mean soldering wires to the sideplates of the trucks, as opposed to letting the one side come in via the truck bolster? This is a very good thing to do, far more reliable than the stock methd. In fact, the earliest P2K locos were direct clones of Athearn but for one thing - they had wires soldered to the truck plates for pickup.

–Randy

6

Guys,
Thanks for the input. Randy, yes I mean soldering to the side plates on the trucks. Actually I solder the “red” or right rail to the original contact post that would make contact with the clip that snaps atop the Athearn motor (tossed that) and the “black” or left rail gets soldered where the top of the side plate meets the plate at a right angle that the locomotive frame pin drops into. I have to be careful with having the iron on the side frames too long as the will melt the plastic around the brass rivets and loosen their fit to the plastic portion of the trucks.

Brad

7

I didnt think that it would really matter if I did both trucks red and both trucks black but YES it matters. I wired an Athearn SD40-2 front truck red rear black and the loco would stall over insulated frogs. After wiring them both the stalling stopped. It matters. As for the harness that Digitrax makes it does kinda make life easy but it also has way too much wire for its own good. I started using those but eventually found just soldering the stuff on myself and making the wires short and neat worked alot better.

Good luck with your conversions.