Well, that was easy. Two screws, take out the light board, put in the LL 8 and secure with the same two screws. Attach the 8 pin female socket which is cleverly arranged to fit upside down onto the LL8 pins. Only 7 pins because the otherwise blank #3 pin is just missing. Lighting is automatically provided for.
DC and DCC performance are both superb with no real difference between the two.
Using my Tech 6 I set one GP7 to run in reverse direction (CV29 set to 7) and both GP7 are addressed to the same single digit address so they consist nicely. Only one drawback is the reversed setting persists in DC mode which doesn’t work correctly of course. I don’t know yet if that’s just the way the Tech 6 handles DC though. I’ll try them on our DC layout powered by Tech 7 powerpacks.
Set CV64 to 2 which seems to brighten up the lights, not sure if brighter is lower or higher in the range of 2-6. The Tech 6 may not be sophisticated but it works just fine. It’s easier to enter CV numbers using the handheld add-on with the screen.
Next step is to fit a LokPilot 5 into a Proto 1000 C-Liner B Unit. I have the ESU 21 pin adapter board and a decoder buddy to try if there’s enough headroom.
Or I can just hard wire it. There’s no NMRA socket. The B Unit has no lighting anyway so I’ll just need to wire the four power and motor wires.
The Proto 1000 RDC3 will take a TCS T1 I have on order. I intend to install the NWSL higher speed gearset also which should prove interesting since “milling” is required.
Four more LL8 are on order for my GP9, GP30 and two GP 38-2. There’s another model on order for one of the steam locomotives, can’t recall which.
Several more T1 will be installed in some steam locomotives and then I’ll be done. Given the fine performance of the LL8 I may switch out some older decoders from a few other locomotives that seem not to run as well as I’d like, particu