I am looking at a a couple of MTH locos GP 38-2 listed as DCC READY on Trainworlds website but I am not sure what type of decoder they would accept 8pin 9 pin 21 pin? Any ideas MTH site was no help!
I think MTH puts their DCS decoders in all their engines. The newer ones will run on DCC, but you don’t get access to all CVs unless you have a DCS system for programming.
The may be saying that it’s DCC-compatible.
I don’t think the DC versions of their locos have any sort of DCC socket. They do things backwards which makes DCC installation hard - they use common negatives on their LED light boards in most cases, and DCC is common positive. There are varous install pictures and stories around the 'net which show how to modify the light boards and install standard DCC decoders.
This LED wiring comes into play when there are multiple lights, say the nose of the loco has a regular headlight and a Mars light. Insea dof runnign 4 wires, it’s normal to run 3. For DCC, you’d hook the positive of both LEDs together and to one wire, then the negative of the headlight would go to one function on the decoder configured as a normal headlight, and the other led’s negative would go to a second function configured for the Mars effect. On MTH, they wired the two LED negatives together, so the three wires are a common negative plus each LED’s positive. Hook that up to a DCC decoder and it won’t work. Won’t fry it, but the LEDs won’t turn on.
–Randy
Per MTH - the DCC Ready version delivered in 2014 of the GP38-2 have “a built-in NMRA 8-pin plug for DCC decoders.”
RR Baron
While browsing several DCC sites (TCS and Tony’s) I found this.
https://mthtrains.com/sites/default/files/download/instruction/80dl13434i.pdf
Go to page nine. Does that help?
Good Luck, Ed