I have an “older” (ca. 2005 I think) P2K DCC ready “Heritage” Berkshire with sound decoder installed…worked well for a while then went dead…have read all the posts I could find…am prepared to hardwire in a decoder ( junk the likghtboards in the tender) and improve the power pickup as suggested…BUT…want to know how to get at the motor and check isolation…old forums suggest this is a project from Hades…but it seems to have been done at least once…How? I don’t want to put in a new decoder if the motor isolation is “iffy”.
I don’t see any screws holding the boiler to the frame…it does look like it was glued down as someone said on this forum…has anyone every gotten this boiler (or cab) assembly off so the motor can be worked?
“DCC Ready” means the motor is isolated from the frame. With a few exceptions, like Athearn “blue box” engines or some of the Bachmann engines that have been around a while (like the FM H-16-44), most all engines built in the last 10-15 years have had the motor isolated. If it wasn’t isolated originally, but the decoder worked for a while (i.e. didn’t start to smoke the first time you tried it), then someone went in and isolated the motor. (I’m assuming this was a used engine?)
When you say the decoder went “dead”, do you mean everything quit working, or just that the sound quit working or ??
thanks for the one response,I have been traveling since I posted the inquiry…I still am “on the road”. Before I left I checked the motor isolation…it was fine. So I don’t have to take apart the engine to check the isolation. I saw no burnt wires or damage on anything. Put the DC plug back in and it ran fine. I am hoping it was just a burnt (MRC) sound decoder. Will get back on it when I return. I probably will put a non-sound decoder in to check everything out before trying to reinstall a sound decoder.
Ya, I’d put a decoder in and then put it on a programming track and try to read back a CV. If it doesn’t read the CV, it may mean there’s some sort of short circuit or some other problem. (By testing it on the programming track, you have much less risk of burning out the decoder if there is a short or other problem.)
It could be at some point the engine derailed or something that caused a short that burned out the decoder. Although fairly rare, it is possible for a decoder just to fail over time. MRC decoders haven’t had a great reputation.