I agree, don't use the old board. I've done a lot of these DCC conversions and found it best to hard wire the decoder in.
Also best to install Led's.
I just read a neat trick to check the new decoder installation is to set it on the program track and read back the factory address of 3. If you can read the address, your installation is not going to burn out the new decoder. Then you can also change the address to whatever you want. If you can't read the address, better check your wiring job
Don't even think of using 12 to 14 volt light bulbs. they can get quite hot and possibly damage the plastic shell. Has happened to some, plus light bulbs have a rather short life compared to LED's.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I have done dozens of L-L FAs, C-Liners, Erie Builts, Geeps and E units. In almost every case I did as Randy suggests and tossed the board (I have a shoebox full if they ever become valuable ) On some of the GP-7 & 9s I did use some DH 165 LO decoders from Digitrax.
Otherwise, your best bet is to lose the board and hardwire with LED's for the headlight.
On some older L-Ls they use the frame for one side of the pickup and on those I tapped a hole and soldered the black wire (I think it was the left rail?) to a small brass washer and screwed it tight to the frame.
Good Luck, Ed
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
There are also traces labeled on the circuit board that need to be cut. On a similar Proto loco, I studied the circuit board before deciding that BEST course of action was to simply scrap the whole thing and hard wire the decoder. Lights were repalced with LEDs with a 1K resistor on each one. The wires are positioned fairly obviously, so you can see which ones are the right side pickups, the left side pickups, and the motor wires.
It's SUPPOSED to work as-is if you cut the traces and use the numbered holes to attach the decoder - the bulb will have a resistor/ But tracing this circuit and drawing it out made the whole thing look like a convoluted mess with half the stuff ont he board bypassed when you cut the required traces - this was why I decided to eliminate any doubt and just hard wire the decoder. More often than not, this is how I install all decoders. Any flaws or "we forgot to mention" in the factory board do not matter when it gets completely bypassed - and I have yet to smoke a decoder.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
These don't have 8-pin sockets but do have numbered solder points on the PC board for a hard-wire decoder. However, they also have diodes for diode constant lighting. Does anything need to be done to get the diodes out of the light circuit for DCC? (I assume you also need to replace the 1.5 V headlight bulb with either a 14 V bulb or an LED with resistor.) (If this is in the product documentation, this is long gone!)