Hi All, I have been trying unsuccessfully to install a new sound decoder in a Broadway Limited N&W Class A HO Scale Locomotive. The old Quantam Decoder has quit working. I purchased a Soundtraxx Steam 2 Tsunami 2 2200 Sound decoder and hooked up the tether using a guide to identify which wires were which to hook up the sound decoder. The decoder burned up which I am going to send back under warranty to retrieve another. Has anyone installed a sound decoder in a Broadway Limited N&W Class A before successfully? If so, how was it done? Does any work have to be done inside the locomotive? I had taken the shell off the locomotvie and from what I see it looked as though I could not do anything there. Let me also add that I put the tender only on the track and it did not short anything out when I hook it up to the locomotive it seemed to short out. I also put just the locomotive on the track and the locomotive did not short out as well. I need help thank you in advance for any help anyone can render as usual.
Sincerely,
Allen Spitzer
Sounds like the right rail/left rail connections are reversed - the tender's right rail is connected to the loco's left rail. But that shouldn't fry the decoder, it's a dead short before the decoder. To fry the decoder usually menas connecting the track pickups to the motor wires.
While they don't use standard color codes, there really aren;t that many wires. The speaker wires should be obvious. If not obvious, you can figure out which wire in the tender is the left pickup and which is the right pickup with a cheap meter witha continuity setting. Likewise, you can figure out the left and right rail pickups in the connector from the loco using the same method. If the motor contacts are exposed with the loco shell off, you can also find the two wires that go to the motor. If you just hook that much up, you shoudl get sounds and the loco should move, just no lights. The wires from the backup light int he tender should eb ovcious, the issue here is if it's a bulb or an LED, if a bulb, what voltage, if an LED, is there already a resistor, etc. So don;t just go hooking it to the decoder, you risk blowing botht he light and the decoder's function output.
What DCC system are you using? You should, if your system ahs one, always test on the program track which is lower power than the main. A wiring fault will prevent reading or writing any CVs, but the low current of the program track may be enough to prevent the decoder from smoking.
There was a similar thread on replacing a QSI in a Sunset brass loco - the method of figuring out the wires I outlined in there is the same as you need for this loco.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Lastspikemike Rapido also specifically warns against this issue for one of the Royal Hudson locomotive trucks, don't recall if it's pilot or trailing but I think pilot though not for power pick up problems, they are dead electrically.