unneeded/unused wired on decoder: what to do

[pugdogg55]

I have recently gotten into dcc and have a loksound 5 decoder for my locomotive. It has a wiring guide. Most of its wires lead to its 8 pin connector. The loose wires are as followed

2 brown ones labeled for the speaker (I have a speaker ready to solder up, to my knowledge, it doesn't matter which wire goes to which side of the speaker, but a quick answer on that if known would be appreciated)

1 purple (labeled for AUX 2)

1 turquoise (labeled for AUX 3)

1 pink (labeled for AUX 4)

 

To my knowledge, those are for more lights that could be installed in my locomotive if i so wanted and not required for me to hook up to run the lights that already work by default. If this is true, and I do not have to hook these wires up (at least if I'm not wanting extra lighting functions), do I need to do something with these wires to ensure they don't make contact with anything inside the shell of my locomotive? Or are they ok to fall where they may, as long as they don't interfere with any moving parts?

Any answers are appreciated

[tstage]

pugdogg,

If you think you'll never use those AUX wires you can just clip them off near the decoder.  Or...merely clip off any exposed or bare wire then pull on the insulation so that it slides past the clipped wire.  This will insulate it and keep it from shorting to anything.

If you think that you might use the AUX wires in the future, leave them as is and insulate the ends with a small piece of heat shrink - e.g. 3/64" or 1/32" OD. 

Tom

[hon30critter]

I would strongly suggest that you don't just cut the wires off close to the decoder. You never know what future uses you may put the decoder to, or what details you may decide to add to the locomotive.

I would add another small suggestion:

When you are going to apply the heat shrink tubing over the spare wire, bend the end of the wire back on itself for 1/4" or more. Then put your heat shrink tubing over the end of the wire. The doubled wire will give the heat shrink tubing more to grab on to and it will be far less likely to slip out of place. Some will accuse me of overkill, but I am a firm believer in Murphy's Law.

Cheers!!

Dave

[rrinker]

 If there is a 'proper' way to insulate unused wires, Dave's method is it. If the stock wires are long, you don;t have to keep teh whole wire, just don't cut it off too close to the decoder such that you could never solder another wire to the remainign bit  and insulate it. Loop the cut end over, and cover with a piece of heat shrink as Dave says. If you later add more lighting to the loco, you only have to clip off the insulated area and extended the wire as needed - so don;t clip off right at the decoder, but you don;t have to leave a huge bunder of wire to potentially get caught in the gears, either.

For a single speaker install, it does not matter which wire goes to which speaker terminals. It DOES matter when doing multiple speakers, because if you wire the speakers backwards, one will have the cone moving in while the other is moving out and it will cancel out the sound, so two speakers in parallel or series, polarity does matter, but for one speaker, it doesn't.

                                                 --Randy