I'm about to pre wire my Atheran Loco's for DCC and I just want to put the harness on for now and do the decoders later, no sense in spending the money right now. I could buy the Digitrax DHAT that's made specifically for the Atheans with the litte clips and stuff but I'm capbable of soldering my own leads and stuff and I want to save some $$$. I plan on using the Digitrax DH123AT decoder but I'm kind of confused by the plug arrangement. I've found TCS 1033 9 Pin Wiring harness but what does this mean: 9 Pin JST to wires?
http://www.dccinstalled.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=TCS-1033
Will this work with the digitrax decoder I'm planning on buying?
Thanks,
The DH123 decoder will come with a wire harness attached. The suffix tells you what kind of harness or board it is attached to.
The 9 pin jack matches the one on the decoder, the other end will have wires if it's to be hard wired, or an 8 pin plug if the loco is DCC ready. Some come with a replacement board for specific locos.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I am a little confused. You say you want to hard wire your detector but then then say you plan on using the DH123AT decoder. The DH123AT has all the clips, etc that you don't need for a hard wire job. The DH123D has the correct wire harness and can be soldered in place as you plan to do. "9 pin JST to wires" describes the wiring harness that can be used for a hard wire installation. The DH123D has a 9 pin JST socket and a 9 pin just plug already included. The JST plug socket combination is used to connect your wires to the decoder and allows for removal/replacement of the decoder. I hope that I have helped to clarify this for you. By the way, there is no difference in the decoder used in the DH123AT and DH123D. The only difference is the wiring.
Joe
I have used both DH123AT and the DH123. I hard wire all of my Athearn locos with the DH123. It is very simple to use. Also the DH123AT uses the head light clip and I pull this out an hard wire my lights too, so I only light the head light and not the whole cab.
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
JoeinPA I am a little confused. You say you want to hard wire your detector but then then say you plan on using the DH123AT decoder. The DH123AT has all the clips, etc that you don't need for a hard wire job. The DH123D has the correct wire harness and can be soldered in place as you plan to do. "9 pin JST to wires" describes the wiring harness that can be used for a hard wire installation. The DH123D has a 9 pin JST socket and a 9 pin just plug already included. The JST plug socket combination is used to connect your wires to the decoder and allows for removal/replacement of the decoder. I hope that I have helped to clarify this for you. By the way, there is no difference in the decoder used in the DH123AT and DH123D. The only difference is the wiring. Joe
Sorry about that Joe. Yeah, I just want to wire up the harnesses now, I found the DHWH 5 pk that will match the DH decoder from Digitrax I'm going to use. Sorry about the DH123AT confusion. Now the question is, will I be able to JUST buy the decoder without the harness when I'm ready to purchase decoders?
The DH123 will come with a harness, but you can always remove it. It just plugs onto the decoder.
I don't understand what advantage there is to installing just a harness, unless you are planning to use one decoder and move it from engine to engine.
Phoebe Vet The DH123 will come with a harness, but you can always remove it. It just plugs onto the decoder. I don't understand what advantage there is to installing just a harness, unless you are planning to use one decoder and move it from engine to engine.
Thanks Phoebe Vet, I don't have a layout right now so I'm working on my loco's and rolling stock in the mean time. In the process of tuning up my Athearn locos I thought it would be a good idea go ahead and get the harnesses mounted now and save myself some time later when Im ready for my layout. You seem to have a lot of DCC knowledge, does this sound like a good idea? Should I not waste my time until I'm ready? Will my locos still run in DC mode with just the harness installed?
Thanks for your input.
ARR
Once you have installed the harness correctly, there will be no connection between the wheel pick up and the motor, so unless you make an additional harness to go in place of the decoder to correctly hook everything up again these locos will not run on a DC layout.
If I were you, I would not bother at this time and wait until you are ready to install the decoders.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
I agree with Simon. I would not install the harness until I had the decoder.
How old are your engines? Are you positive they are not DCC ready? If they are, they may have an 8 pin jack with a jumper plugged into it. With one of those, you can just unplug the jumper and plug in a decoder.
If you are comfortable installing your own, decoders are not expensive. Just buy them one at a time and install them instead of buying those harnesses.
You can't buy the DH123 without the harness, teh cheapest version comes with a plain wire harness. You CAN however buy the TCS T1 without any sort of harness and it's usually a buck or so cheaper than the T1 with the plain wire harness. And the T1 is a just plain better decoder than the DH123. For less money.
As noted, if you install the harness with JST plug, your loco will no longer operate on DC unless you get some dummy plugs for the 9 pin connector. You CAN get them, but it's an additional expense that isn't necessary, just install the decoder.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thank you everyone for the great information. I think I'll wait until I'm ready to do the decoders and I kind of figured that they wouldn't run on DC once I put the harness on them. And don't worry, before I get too much deeper into DCC I'm going to get a few books, do lots of reading online and read through this entire board. That's not to say that I won't still have questions for you all.
Thanks again,
They're older BB Athearn's, not the rubber band drives, if that's called something different. I've remotored a couple of them too. They do not have any kind of DDC plug in them. I'm pretty good at soldering and I have a pretty good electronics background so I should be able to install them no prob.