Older P2k E8 decoder install

[pall]

 Thanks for the tips guys. and Randy thank you for the heads up on that motor problem was not aware of that one. yip one of the E's has got one of those motors.

 This is the first time these two have been out of there boxes since I got them and are the last two to have decoders added. 

 Thanks

 Paul  

     

[river_eagle]

digitrax has a how-to here,

http://www.digitrax.com/appnote_e8e9.php

but you're better off gutting all the olfdelectrics and starting from scratch.

[rrinker]

 Just follow the wires logically. There are two wires that connect to the right side of each truck, those go to the red wire on the decoder. There are tow that go to the left side of each truck, those go to the black wire. There should be one from the top of the motor, this usually goes to the grey on the decoder, and oen fromt he bottom of the motor - that's the orange. There are two to the headlight, this will need to be repalced with a 14-16V bulb or a golden white LED with a 1K resistor. One side goes to the blue, the other to white. For a bulb it won't matter, for an LED, the blue wire is +. If your loco has a Mars light, I'd suggest replacing the wierd dual filament bulb with a regular 14-16V bulb. This goes to the blue and yellow wires. (2 things connect to the blue). Done.

  I'd do a quick test on DC to see what the current draw is, there were a few P2K locos back in the day that had the wrong motor fitted which had a ridiculous current draw. At the time, Life-Like repalced them for free. If you're the original owner you might want to contact Walthers if it turns out you have the high current model - the motor draws 4 amps stalled and will quickly fry most any HO decoder. The proper motor is under 1 amp and works just fine with HO decoders.

                                      --Randy

 

[pall]

Hi one and all.

I am about to put a digitrax dh163 decoder into an older p2k E8 which dosn't have a DCC plug on the board. any tips and hint would be really nice. this one looks to be quit hard to do, hope I'm wrong though. many thanks

Paul