I have an ho Bachmann Acela electric trainset locomotive. I want sound for the Acela electric locomotive however, in order to achieve that I will have to replace the original DC board with a Digitrax DH165L0 so it is sound ready. The original DC board had a track/pantograph toggle switch with a contact wiper that touches the pantograph. How can I add or wire a track/pantograph toggle in addition to the newly installed board? If not how can I create some form of toggle switch that changes between track and pantograph?
You will need a Single Pole Double throw switch in an ON - none - ON configuration. The switch will have three contacts on it. The center one should go to the BLACK decoder wire. One side should go to the left track pickup. (So if the BLACK wire is going to the left hand track pickup, then the RED decoder wire would go to the center switch contact, and the side switch contact would go where the RED wire would normally connect to for the right track rail.) The other side of the switch would go to the panograph. The overhead wire would have to be connected to the right rail. However, when you turned the loco around on the track, it wouldn’t work.
Normally, to run a loco from a panograph, both track rails would be tied together as BLACK, and the panograph would be on the RED wire. But if you did it that way, you could only run electric locos with panograph pickup.
In my opinion, rewiring the loco this way is not worth it and it will only get you in trouble.
I do not recommend it. Wire the loco as you would normally wire any DCC loco.
The replies in your other post on this same subject should not be ignored.