Okay, maybe that is asking too much. But there has got to be some tips for us fumble fingered HO dabblers.
I know the wiring sequences, but I was looking at an old Kato Dash 9 and it comes with mars lights. I can wire HO DCC and have even isolated the motor on a few. But N-scale is itty bitty and my challenge with HO is trying to hold everything and not get burnt.
Are there some tips on how to work with such small things. You know, getting the decoder in the tight spots, holding the wires, making precise wire lengths, stripping micro-wires, etc. What do you do?
If I ever do one, I’ll do photo essay and post it–that is if I don’t look like a total geek doing it.
I have done a few and yes, these things are very small and for a small GP loco, things just get tighter and tighter!
The thing is, all decoders are pretty much the same, it’s which loco you going to install it in that’s the question to ask. Atlas are easy and with all split frame isolated motor loco’s. I just bought 2 Spectrum Dash-8CW’s and they said it’s ‘DCC Friendly’ and I thought cool! Only when I received them today I discovered that the motors aren’t insulated and so you will need to insulate them somehow and Digitrax DZ143’s would fit them but you have to take out the original PC board with LED’s and then try to solder the pick up somewhere as those also do not have pick up rails like the Atlas does.
So there you go, if you want easy, then choose a Atlas loco and most of them have drop-in decoders available for them anyway and then that’s only a 10 min job where as these 2 Dash 8’s will probably take me upwards of one hour each as the whole thing’s got to come apart to try to insulate the motor from the frame.