Well I finally did it I made my own wire harness yesterday. I used male/female DCC sockets from litchfield Station and I picked up digitrax wire through Walthers. After I figured out what went where I soldered the wires and vola I tested it. the locomotive works and the install is clean.
making your own wire harness makes it easier to install drop in decoders easier in the wrong locomotive. See I had a NCE decoder that was to big to install in my Bachmann Spectrum Dash 8 so I had to fit it in the rear . So I made my own wire harness that ran from the factory plug to the rear of the locomotive. soldered the wires onto the posts instead of inside the posts. I also installed ditch lights but soldered those to the decoder functions 3 and 4. will post pictures later if anyone is interested.
You should see how I did my Stewart F7. I didn’t feel like buying a plug (I can be cheap like that) so I took the jmper plug it came with and cut the shorting traces, then soldered the decoders wires to my new 8-pin plug.
Yes, and you HO folks can knock yourselves out soldering decoders! I did a hardwire install on an N scale Bachmann 2-8-0 (in the boiler) and about when blind (mostly with rage)[:(!]!
Just kidding about the rage (almost)…[:-^]
Seriously, that’s a great job! Fine soldering is an excellent skill too few of us have. [tup]
Randy I was thinking of doing that myself but didnt, most of the jumpers that came with my locomotive were of the solder type and I didnt feel like cleaing/messing with that. Plus I figured whats a dollar a plug if I even paid that. Plus
Most of installs like in Athearn bb units are hardwired. I basically put the electrical tape on the frame cut the headlight bracket off. Cut the contacts off of the brass contacts solder up the grey and orange to the motors brushes, solder the red wire to the wheel contacts (put a jumper from front to rear trucks), installl all new headlight and rear lights and if I want i install ditch lights. Cheap yes, advisable yes, works as good as the Athearn harness you bet.
Initially I was having fun hardwiring decoders in N loco’s. But after about a month, I just can’t be bothered anymore and just buy either dcoder equipted or ones that has droppd in decoders. HO is so much easier than N that’s for sure! But good job with the harness, certainly beats hardwiring. At first I was having problem just try to get all the wires and LED and decoder to fit in the shell!
Actually it probably works BETTER than the Athearn harnesses.
I hard-wire just about everything. I’d guess you’d have to call it hard wiring even when using a board repalcement for something like an Atlas/Kato since you have to solder lights tot eh decoder, and solder wires to those straps they use from the motor. And solder the track pickups to the decoder - I don’t trust slip-fitting them to the decoder.
Too many locos that have a socket are wirid wrong or have other gotchas, so I end up replacing the factory board and hard wiring, that way I KNOW it’s wired correctly. WHen possible, I use decoders thathave the 9 pin connectors on them so I can swp if required, or even convert to straight DC by plugging in a dummy plug. My last hard-wire job was a P2K E unit, what I did there was locate the decoder up front and run the wires back and connected them to the stock wires which I pulled off the circuit board. Instead of cutting and trimming it all back - the wires lay neatly in the channel across the top of the weight anyway. That way, if the owner wants to go back to stock form, all he has to do it cut the wires and push the m back into the proper holes on the circuit board and the loco is just like original.
Hopefully you can posts some more info on what you did. If possible show some pictures, I have two dash 8’s that I would like to install decoders on also.
But good job with the harness, certainly beats hardwiring. At first I was having problem just try to get all the wires and LED and decoder to fit in the shell!