Still putting off cleaning my basement and re-doing that track work I decided instead to wire up an adapter for the final GP in my roster. I have four of these girls in total.
Next on the list was CP, GP 9 #8829. She is the one that came with the circuit board that one could solder a decoder to. Mentioned in this thread here. http://forum.zealot.com/t153984/
I said I was going to order one of these adapters and I did. I actually ordered three since I figured I may need one in the future...one never knows.
I'll try and keep this in some form of sequence and explain what was involved up to a point. I will wire up the LEDs tonight sometime
I used one of my existing locos as a reference. Noting where the coloured wires go and how to wire up the adapter to work the same as the stock NMRA plug.
Sorry for the blurry pic. What I am trying to show in this photo is I ended up soldering two black wires for the trucks to one pin, and two blue (common) wires to another pin for the lights. This is how the wires are connected to the plug in the loco which came equipped with the NMRA plug.
This was taken after the my first initial test run. I wired up both black wires to the trucks, the orange wire to the original red wire (I disconnected it before this pic was taken) for the motor, and the grey wire to the copper strip for the motor. Finally the red wire from the adapter as a ground to the frame just like my reference loco. I cannot tell you how many times I tested and re-tested all along the way, just to make sure I got my wiring correct.
The adapter sits kinda tall. Too tall to just plug into the decoder and tape it down and go with it. So I modified the frame (bye bye warranty) so that I could invert the adapter and decoder inside the loco shell. I used a Dremel tool and milling bit to remove the excess material after I carefully marked where the adpater would nestle into the frame. After this, all I needed to do was make sure when I plugged it in that I had the adapter oriented correctly to the decoder pins.
Once I carefully threaded the wiring back through the framework, I screwed it back in place and gave any metal frame parts that may come into contact with the decoder or adapter with a coat of Plati-Dip. I also coated the wire connections for the motor and trucks.
Test run. Every thing okee dokey.
Taped down the decoder and did another test run.
Here is a pic of one of the other adapters I purchased. I ran into a bit of curious problem when I noticed the adapter I had chosen was missing a white wire for the front light. I thought it was odd, however went ahead and unsoldered the green wire and re-attached it to where the white wire should be. I wasn't going to need the green wire where it was located anyways. It never dawned on me until a bit later, once I was up to my elbows in this to see if the other adapters were wired the same way. They were not. The other two had all eight wires soldered to the pins. Leave it to me to pick the one that didn't have all the wires to work with.
Test fit of the shell to the frame. I'll post up once the LEDs are wired and everything is buttoned up.
Next on the list was CP, GP 9 #8829. She is the one that came with the circuit board that one could solder a decoder to. Mentioned in this thread here. http://forum.zealot.com/t153984/
I said I was going to order one of these adapters and I did. I actually ordered three since I figured I may need one in the future...one never knows.
I'll try and keep this in some form of sequence and explain what was involved up to a point. I will wire up the LEDs tonight sometime
I used one of my existing locos as a reference. Noting where the coloured wires go and how to wire up the adapter to work the same as the stock NMRA plug.
Sorry for the blurry pic. What I am trying to show in this photo is I ended up soldering two black wires for the trucks to one pin, and two blue (common) wires to another pin for the lights. This is how the wires are connected to the plug in the loco which came equipped with the NMRA plug.
This was taken after the my first initial test run. I wired up both black wires to the trucks, the orange wire to the original red wire (I disconnected it before this pic was taken) for the motor, and the grey wire to the copper strip for the motor. Finally the red wire from the adapter as a ground to the frame just like my reference loco. I cannot tell you how many times I tested and re-tested all along the way, just to make sure I got my wiring correct.
The adapter sits kinda tall. Too tall to just plug into the decoder and tape it down and go with it. So I modified the frame (bye bye warranty) so that I could invert the adapter and decoder inside the loco shell. I used a Dremel tool and milling bit to remove the excess material after I carefully marked where the adpater would nestle into the frame. After this, all I needed to do was make sure when I plugged it in that I had the adapter oriented correctly to the decoder pins.
Once I carefully threaded the wiring back through the framework, I screwed it back in place and gave any metal frame parts that may come into contact with the decoder or adapter with a coat of Plati-Dip. I also coated the wire connections for the motor and trucks.
Test run. Every thing okee dokey.
Taped down the decoder and did another test run.
Here is a pic of one of the other adapters I purchased. I ran into a bit of curious problem when I noticed the adapter I had chosen was missing a white wire for the front light. I thought it was odd, however went ahead and unsoldered the green wire and re-attached it to where the white wire should be. I wasn't going to need the green wire where it was located anyways. It never dawned on me until a bit later, once I was up to my elbows in this to see if the other adapters were wired the same way. They were not. The other two had all eight wires soldered to the pins. Leave it to me to pick the one that didn't have all the wires to work with.
Test fit of the shell to the frame. I'll post up once the LEDs are wired and everything is buttoned up.