DCCconcepts Pty Ltd, 3/13 Lionel St., Naval Base WA 6165 Australia. * www.dccconcepts.com * +61 8 9437 2470 * [email protected]
OK… The loco is pre-checked and the brushes are both
confirmed as being isolated, the most important part of
the pre-install work is done.
We can move on! Its time to begin the wiring...
We will take our time explaining this procedure - and we
may well rabble on a bit and spread it over a couple of
pages because its important to get it done both correctly
and tidily, and that needs both thought and planning.
Do the first couple “one step at a time” and it will become
an easy and relaxed process very quickly. Rush and you
will damage decoders and just become frustrated.
Size matters.
Before you get out the wire strippers, plan the installation.
Decide where the decoder will go. Position it there, hold
in place with thin tape & check the body will go back on.
Tidiness matters - so now we plan the wire lengths.
If you need wire, DCCconcepts have an excellent range
including all of the DCC-wiring standards colours. We
even offer pre-twinned wires for key wiring areas such as:
Red + Black (track power wire colours)
Grey (decoder-to-motor colours)
Blue + White (front lighting colours)
Blue + Yellow (rear lighting colours)
Assess wire lengths needed and cut them, leaving a little
excess to allow wires to be routed tidily without strain.
Keep wire off-cuts as they will always find a use later on.
How you strip & tin the wire matters too.
Don’t just strip by pulling, don’t use blades or teeth either!
Use good quality wire strippers such as the DCCconcepts
FWS Fine wire strippers to ring-cut insulation about 5mm
from the end.
The DCT-FWS wire strippers are without doubt the BEST
small wire strippers available anywhere. They have sharp
cutters between the stripping grooves, and they can be
pre-set and locked for consistent perfect results.
Once the wire is ring-cut (close the strippers and twist),
we can put the strippers down.
Now, instead of just pulling, pull gently at the cut-end of
the insulation and as you do, twist it so that the fine cop-
per strands are all perfectly twisted at the same time.
This guarantees a perfectly tidy wire end to work with.
All that remains is to tin and trim it.
Using a generous helping of No-Clean flux and a tiny bit
of 179 solder, tin the end of the wires, then cut off leaving
about 2~3mm with a perfectly tidy end ready to connect.
Now the basics are covered, We are ready to discuss
how to attach wires, to each other, to the decoder, the
motor and to the chassis or pickups of the locomotive.
While we are checking things… lets look at any lighting
you may need to change or add during an installation.
Key point: We are mainly talking here about older
non-DCC-ready locomotives. Many DCC ready loco’s
will already be wired for basic lighting, and later DC
locomotives will usually have LEDs already fitted.
However… Earlier DC locomotives equipped with
lights will usually be fitted with incandescent bulbs.
These can be OK, but they will also run very hot
when used with DCC, as they will always be on all of
the time and of course, the DCC track voltage will
usually be at a level above the average voltage used
when you were running that locomotive on DC.
So...It is a good idea to replace them with LEDs while
you already have the top off for the DCC installation.
LEDs are not expensive but please - do not use the
“white” LEDs sold in the local electronics shop as these
will almost always be an unrealistic blue-tinted white.
For all but the most modern of locomotives by far the
most realistic colour for these LEDs will be what we call
“Prototype White”. Common sizes for model use are the
3mm, the 2mm tower and 1.8mm size. For small lighting
in larger scales (such as marker lights) or most lighting in
N scale, DCCconcepts prewired “NANOlights will be best.
How are the lights connected and how do I wire them
so that I can control them with my DCC system?
In DC-days, lighting was generally installed quite simply.
It was either “one wire to chassis and one to the power
pickup” or with more sophisticated loco’s, they added a
diode to make it directional. In more expensive loco’s
there may have also been a diode bridge with a low volt-
age bulb across it… but none of this matters really, be-
cause basically, if you want to have lights that can be
properly configured/controllable, it’ll have to be changed.
Yes, you could modify the wiring, but lots of experienced
gained from many hundreds of installations says that it
really is easier to re-wire.
The next tutorial covers this.
To prepare you a little for rewiring of your loco’s, the
next page will focus on the connections you may
need to make within a locomotive during installation.
Red (track power, usually
thought of as “right rail)
Black (track power, usually
thought of as “left rail)
Orange (Motor, usually top or
right brush holder)
Grey (Motor, usually lower or
left brush holder)
Blue (common positive wire for
all lights/active functions)
White (function 1, FL or front
light). Def=F0 “on forward only”
Yellow (function 2, FL or front
light). Def= F0“on reverse only”
Green (function 3 or Aux 1)
Def= F1, on f reverse
Purple (function 4 or Aux 2)
Def= F2, on f reverse
Brown (function 5 or Aux 3)
Def= F3, on f reverse
Brown is also quite often used
for sound/speaker connections.
Pink (function 6 or Aux 4)
Def= F4, on f reverse
