Have an Ihc mother hubbard and was going to put a digitrax dz125 decoder in it. After a 30 minutes of fussing with the body I gave up. I really would like a decoder but am frustreted by it now. Any takers. I will pay shipping both ways if anyone is willing.
Mike
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
rs2mikeHave an Ihc mother hubbard and was going to put a digitrax dz125 decoder in it.
David, I think the idea is more to keep folks from selling stuff and turning it into a market. In this case, the OP is asking for help. If a person were to discretely contact him via PM and offer to get him out of a jam, that would be okay as far as I am concerned. Just no negotiating and haggling out in the open, that's all.
-Crandell
You guys sure do stay up late!
Hope I'm not violating forum policy with this referral, but check out Randy Rinker's site (RRinker). The link is at the bottom of his posts. Apparently, David Bedard can help as well.
I'm sure there are others, too, with tiny fingers, steady hands, keen eyesight, and unending patience.
I have no commercial interest here; I'm just remembering what I've read!
Rick Krall
Texas Zepher rs2mikeHave an Ihc mother hubbard and was going to put a digitrax dz125 decoder in it. It this an HO scale locomotive? Have you measured the current draw to make certain the z-scale decoder will handle it?
Yep it is HO scale. The z decoder can handel 1.0 amp and 1.5 amp. The engine has a newer can motor in it, not the open frame one.
davidmbedard Hate to say it....told you so.....lol. Anyways, as a professional installer, I cannot accept this work because of the forum policies, nor can anyone else for any type of fee. David B
Hate to say it....told you so.....lol.
Anyways, as a professional installer, I cannot accept this work because of the forum policies, nor can anyone else for any type of fee.
David B
selector David, I think the idea is more to keep folks from selling stuff and turning it into a market. In this case, the OP is asking for help. If a person were to discretely contact him via PM and offer to get him out of a jam, that would be okay as far as I am concerned. Just no negotiating and haggling out in the open, that's all. -Crandell
Thanks rick for the info I will look around and see what I find.
I guess this is a very hard install. I thought I might get lucky and someone offer their help in the install. So if it is not against forum rules has anyone had a decoder installed by someone and an feedback on how they did and what the cost was?
Thanks
If it's a newer engine, most likely the motor is already insulated from the frame. Are there wires going back to the tender?? If so, it might be "DCC ready" and just need a drop-in decoder. Have you removed the tender shell?? Take a look.
A DCC "hardwire" installation isn't all that hard...two wires go from the wheels to the decoder, two wires go from the decoder to the motor, and two wires go to the headlight. The wires are color coded so you know which wires go where.
As far as opening up the engine, just turn it over (preferably in a foam cradle) and start removing screws until it comes open or falls apart!!
I did a quick Yahoo search on "IHC decoder install" and these popped up, see if they help you (the last one has the most detailed step by step info, but no pics):
http://www.trains.com/mrr/default.aspx?c=a&id=188
http://www.tcsdcc.com/decoderpics/ihc_asa_packer_4_6_2.htm
http://www.tcsdcc.com/decoderpics/IHC%20Mogul/ihc_mogul.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~mashelley/MogulInst.html
Note that Digitrax in their "Big Book of DCC" use an IHC mogul decoder installation of an example (with pics) of a DCC installation that is pretty straightforward and relatively easy to do. In the book I think they added a Soundtraxx sound decoder.
Thanks stix. I can never find anything needed. It is a newer model with the can motor. Wires run to tender. No plug in tender. I got all that. I thought I had all 2 screws off the botom of the engine. I removed all railings and extra goodies that attached to the middle cab. I can wiggle the cab and wiggle the back head area but cannot get the dang thing off. I have hard wire atherns and atlas and bachman engines and Rivarossi engines. But I just can not get the boiler off. I will see if the links you gave me will help any.
If there are wires connecting back to the tender from the engine, you may not need to remove the boiler. Unfortunately I don't have any IHC engines so don't know where the screws are. It can be tricky, some engines that I do have, have a screw you have to access thru the smokestack!
There are wires from the tender to the motor. I know from the exploded view that there is wires from the engine to the motor as well.
I don't have an IHC Mother Hubbard, but every other IHC steam loco I have installed decoders into were made the same -- there should be a long screw under the front pony truck that goes up through the cylinders into the boiler's weight. Once that screw is removed, the back of the cab is held on with two tabs. You have to pull forward on the boiler to release these tabs and then the boiler can be lifted off.
There are two wires connected to the front set of drivers for the headlight, and two wires (all black) connected to the rear drivers that go to the motor, and then to the tender. A bronze strip runs the length of the loco frame between the front headlight wiring point and motor wire solder point. In order to have the headlight controlled by the decoder this wiring scheme will have to be changed. The boiler face plate can be pulled off to access the headlight bulb and untwist the wires to give you more length to work with.
The motor brushes are isolated. It doesn't matter at all if a motor is grounded to the frame as long as the brushes are isolated; which they always are on IHC models.
The weight in the boiler occupies so much of the available space that the only way you can rewire the headlight is to remove the weight and cut a long groove into it for the headlight wiring. A fiberglass reinforced cutoff wheel in a Dremel can be used for this. It is highly advisable to substitute a Golden Glow LED for the headlight in place of the stock incandescent 16 Volt bulb.
All of the handrails and their support posts must be removed from the boiler because they interfere with removing the weight.
Good luck.
Thanks cacole. I must have missed the long screw under the front truck. This engine already has the led but it is way too yellow. I will have to change that. I am going to dig into it on monday,many gardening projects to do today while the weather is nice. I will post some pics on how the project goes. This is the most difficult decoder job I have done yet!!