A DZ125 was working fine, then it started shorting out (I think, it made that beep/buzz sound). I double checked the wiring, and all was fine, so I thought it might have been the trucks, so I removed the black and red wires and touched them directly to the track, and then it would still short out as soon as the wires touched the rail. I peeled back the wrapping on the decoder to see if one of the wires had moved into the other’s territory, but it hadn’t.
Is all lost? Should I accept this one as a lost and move on, or is there a quick fix I don’t know about?
Thanks
nick.
I’m no decoder expert…other people on this forum can tell you more and I’ll also learn in the process.If it happened to me,I’d try disconnecting the motor to see if the sound persist.It seems to me like the motor is binding thus the sounds you hear.Just a guess…
I think you fried your decoder.
It would help us immensly if you told us which loco you actually installed it into.
David B
I forgot to mention… The motor is disconnected. I installed the decoder in a tender of a 4-6-4, which included plugs for the motor wires, so the engine wasn’t plugged in. Only the tail light. I’ll try removing that, but there aren’t any visible short circuit spots, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
Thanks for your help though.
Con-Cor N scale 4-6-4. And disconnecting the tail light didn’t help. Spark still fly and short out the system when the wires touch the track.
Is a tender truck turned around perhaps?
Rotor
I thought that might have been the case, so I removed the decoder from the tender completely. Now it’s a decoder connected to a reversing lamp. No more, no less. And still sparks fly when the wires touch the track. Same as when it was installed in the tender.
If nothing is hooked up, it sounds like it fried! 
Rotor
DCC is becomming really expensive, really quick.
Thanks for the help.
Do yourself a favor and purchase a multi-meter. It becomes your best tool to insure a decoder socket is actually READY to recieve a decoder.
In terms of the fried decoder, can you see or smell any burning that occured with the decoder? Depending on the make of the decoder, you might be able to get a new one for free (less shipping, of course).
David B
Yea it smells like something burnt. The thing I don’t get is that it was working fine, then out of nowhere, it started shorting out. Not sure what happened. I’ve got a multi-meter, not sure how to use it for a decoder though. What’ll I need to do?
Remove the decoder and insert the multimeter into pins 1 and 8. There should not be a short. Insert the multimeter into pins 4 and 5, there should be no short. Insert Multimeter into pins 1 and 4 and then 8 and 5, again look for a short. If there is a short between pins 1or5 and 4or8, then you have a problem. This is what eats up decoders and this means the motor is not isolated from the frame. This then requires that you need to trace the motor short to track issue and fix it.
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pin 1
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orange
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motor +ve
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pin 8
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red
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track pickup
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pin 2
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yellow
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reverse light (F0)
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Yea I understand it. Thanks a lot, I’ll give it a try.
nick.