Was wondering if any one has had problems with the diode on these units. I have had them go bad on 4 units. I want to DCC them, but have been told this diode will still be a problem with or without the DCC chip. Would like to hear from someone who has had this problem and has resloved it.
Thanks in advance;
Bob
The DCC should get rid of any problem. If you wanted to use an LED for the light on your locomotive I would curtainly recommend it. Go and buy the golden white 1.5 volt LED. You can get these from radio shack. Then buy the resistor for it. The diodes are located on the on the directional head light chip so taking that out would get rid of your problem. You will need some fine wire to attach the DCC chip. Go with the NCE DASR series chip.
james
James; Are you saying not to use the plug and play chip, but hard wire it? I have been in Model RxRing a long time , but new to this DCC. Please to tolerent with my questions. I have already hard wired three of the units to do away with the busse bar system. Which made them run a whole lot better.
Your pics are nice. I was raised on Lines West. Remimber it well.
Bob
I have two Kato SD40-2s and I used the NMRA socket to install plug-and-play decoders. I left the stock bulbs in them for now, so there was no issue with the diodes.
I think Kato sells replacement PC boards with golden-white LEDs. You could look it up in the parts section of their website at www.katousa.com .[:D]
Thanks for the compliments on the pictures.
The DCC chips I am talking about will probably take 25 to 35 minutes to install. The board already has the holes drilled for it so you can place wire directly into th hole and peg it with one of those end pegs. To install the lights you need a resistor and the LED. sotore the resistor to the LED and then sotore the wires to it and then peg them to the board. It’s pretty simple. NCE sells these chips. If you have problems with the board you have in it right now it’s a good idea to replace it with the DCC chip.
James
Never had a problem with mine at all…mine is also equipped with the NMRA plug for decoders so it was easily done too, but if you’ll ask specific questions on here and follow the instructions that come with digitrax (or any I assume) decoders the installation isn’t hard at all, and after a couple it’ll become really easy to do. The only recommendation I have is to go ahead and buy the more expensive decoder to start with (maybe after your first one) so you’ll have enough functions for all the lights and stuff you’ll want to add one day. That was my mistake, so now I’m replacing my first ones with better decoders.
They are great runners and pullers, but I just added some #9 lead shot in the snoot and the top of the shell of mine to make it pull more. I’ll see how it works when the glue dries.
Good luck,
Greg