A simple conversion using a Hattons DCR-8PIN-HarnessMini. Very Important - Both arms of the brush spring must be sleeved to isolate both brushes from track power otherwise the decoder is likely to be destroyed. Decoder has been fixed with a sticky pad to the rear of the chassis. Interference suppression components removed. Decoder harness wires are hard wired directly to the motor brushes with unshrunk heat shrink sleeves as strain relief. Track power is connected to the decoder from the pickup wire and the solder tag retained by the motor mounting screw. Unused wires from the connector are cropped, wires from opposite end coiled up. Discussion always Jim Return to Index
I like the look of these decoders the harness would make it easy to change if a decoder fails at some point.
Hi John That is certainly the beauty of the harness based decoders, however the Hattons decoders IMO are not as pickup tolerant as some others, in particular the Rails Connect decoders which were designed with that in mind. I have successfully used quite a few of these Hattons decoders over the years. Although I mainly use the Rails Connect family now as a first choice for vintage locos it is unfortunate that the harness version, the RoS-218, is a rather bulky device compared with the Hattons decoder used for this loco. Jim
These X04 motors are very easy to wire for DCC, as are similar open-frame motors (like, for example, the one Hornby Dublo and Wrenn used in the old R1 0-6-0T). As Jim says, the most important thing is to insulate both brushes, and that's easily done with sleeves of plastic or heat-shrink material.