Can anyone help me find information on installing a motive decoder into a older IHC Mountain.
not to good at this yet.
thanks Larry
this is one you're going to have to hardwire yourself.
Put the loco on the test track so you don't fry the decoder right out in the event you've a wiring mishap. program, and off you go!
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
I've put decoders into a couple of these, and they were not DCC ready. I put the decoders on top of the motor inside the boiler instead of in the tender.
The first thing you're going to need is a digital meter so you can trace the wiring. If you don't have a meter, Harbor Freight sometimes sells them for as little as $1.98.
After you have removed the boiler from the frame, the first thing you have to do is unsolder the wires from the motor tabs. There should be two black wires soldered to each tab. One of these wires goes to the headlight and the other goes to the wheels for electrical pickup. Separate the wires and trace them with the VOM to determine which ones go to the wheels.
Solder the red decoder wire to the wire from the right hand drive wheels, and the black decoder wire to the wire from the left hand wheels.
The orange decoder wire goes to the motor tab that was connected to the right hand drivers, and the gray decoder wire goes to the other motor tab.
The decoder's blue and white wires solder to the headlight wires.
The headlight bulb is a 16 Volt incandescent lamp that needs no resistor; however, I added a 20 Ohm resistor to one of the headlight wires to prolong the bulb life and prevent a power surge when the headlight is first turned on.
Fasten the decoder to the top of the motor using double-sided white foam tape and reinstall the boiler.
I used TCS T-1 decoders, but a Digitrax DH123 or anything smaller should be okay. The motor in IHC models is a very efficient can motor that draws minimal current.
Your model's wiring may deviate from the above in that there may be only one black wire soldered to each motor tab instead of two. In this event, the headlight wires are connected to the front set of drive wheels instead of the motor tabs. I just leave the headlights soldered to the front drivers on models of this type instead of trying to rewire them, which means that the headlight stays on all the time.
If your locomotive is assembled this way and you want to control the headlgiht with the decoder, you'll have to remove the lead weight from inside the boiler, cut the headlight wires from the front set of drive wheels, and connect the headlight to the decoder. Then you'll have to cut a groove into the top of the lead weight for the headlight wires to be fed through.
Here are some pics of a 2-8-2 I did with a loksound decoder. Leds front and rear lights, you may have to pull stack out to get weight to slide out of the boiler. I drilled out the weight so led and resistor for front light tso it would slide through center of weight. Used 2 minitronics 3 wire connectors to connect tender to loco.OHM meter a must have.
This is also the the loco on my avatar