Older turnouts built for DC power are not friendly with Digital Command Control and can cause power shorts. By reworking them to power the switch points to be consistent with the stock rails it makes them friendly with DCC power. The upper switch has been converted and the lower switch is still stock.
PCRy engines
A few of the engines I have been converting to Digital Command Control (DCC). I am now starting to add more track to the layout to get the main line finished.
I recently set out to convert an Athearn/Digitrax digital PC board from using light bulbs to powering LEDs. The process involves removing the eight limiting diodes and increasing the two series resistors from 150 to 1K ohms. Since I could find no schematic of the PC board I drew a circuit representation on my CAD program to aid in identifying what circuits to modify. The project has proven to be a great success.
I am currently converting an Atlas Alco C-424 to DCC and have run into a problem with converting the cab and rear light systems into LED’s. You can see the two long plastic light tubes used in the factory setup with one light bulb for both. Since the Soundtraxx MC2 board has separate light controls I want to incorporate two LED’s, but where and how to add them. I will post this question to the internet and take the problem to the experts at our club.
For the last week I have been fighting with the QSI decoder in my Athern HH660 engine.
I have contacted Athern and the QSI factory in Beaverton, Oregon. At first I thought the wheel wipers in the trucks were not conducting properly but after learning how the wipers work moved on to look at the wiring. When the wiring proved to be OK, I took the engine to the Willamette club and we decided it had to be the decoder. I’m now in contact with the QSI operations manager, Kelly Dorf, who also does repairs on QSI decoders. I did learn there is a QSI user group on Yahoo from which I am getting many suggestions. I’m hoping for the best on this $130 sound decoder.