Hi all -
I am installing a TCS WOW Steam Sound Decoder with Keep Alive in an Athearn MT-4 via a 9 pin to 8 pin plug. There are a pink and a brown wire that come out on the back end where the Keep Alive is and I have no idea what they do (the TCS manual doesn’t say what their function is). What I am trying to figure out, is whether my decoder is defective or whether these two wires need to be hardwired in somewhere because the decoder does not work (doesn’t work on the tracks nor works with JMRI). I am not a huge expert on installing these things so bear with me please. Thanks in advanced!
Pink and brown are for additional functions. It’s on the instruction sheet. The 9 pin connector only has enough wires for 4 functions, to get 6 there are the pinka dn brown wires out the back side. Purple is speakers, blue is another function common, striped black is for the stay alive, and the tan is for a chuff cam.
http://www.tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Literature/Decoders/WOWSound/WOWSteam/WOW101-Steam.pdf
–Randy
You also do not need a 9 pin to 8 pin adapter in that loco. There is already a 9 pin with the dummy plug in it - you need to remove that. You can use the 9 to 8 pin, but why not jsut plug the decoder 9 pin into the included 9 pin? Pretty sure your problem is that you did not remove the dummy plug.
–Randy
I tried the 9 to 8 pin connector after no response from the locomotive when I used the JST 9 pin plug plugged directly into the decoder, and I made sure the dummy plug was off when I used the 9 to 8 pin adapter.
Thinking it’s defective in some way since the wires that I mentioned are only for extra lighting functions, so I’m going to utilize TCS’s warranty on this one. Thanks for everyone’s input!
I just completed a WOW sound decoder installation on an athearn diesel with a strobe light, I used the pink wire on the keepalive end for the strobe function with a 220 ohm resistor between a 1.5V incandescent bulb to the strobe, the Brown wire offers one additional lighting feature if your motherboard is limited to only the front and rear head lights, Genesis mother boards offer two additional lighting features with built in resisters, RTR versions have only two lighting connections with built-in resisters. Be sure to use a resister or you may burn out the internal transistors on the keep alive end of the TDC decorder, if this happens you can always tap into the purple or green wires on the opposite end of the TCS harness, resister still nessessary. The blue wires on either end of the TCS decorder are common. Darryl