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Converted a Märklin 36627 SBB Alpäzähmer to DCC

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  • Member since
    September 2014
  • From: 10,430’ (3,179 m)
  • 2,277 posts
Posted by jjdamnit on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 1:28 PM

Hello All,

When I was in Germany, two weeks ago, Märklin locomotives were offered in AC and DC with DCC compatible decoders.

The OP didn't mention that the original power configuration was AC.

That's where my confusion stemmed from. 

Thank you for the clarification.

Hope this helps.

"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"

  • Member since
    May 2010
  • From: SE. WI.
  • 8,253 posts
Posted by mbinsewi on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 1:04 PM

jjdamnit
Am I missing something?

Kind of, Marklin equipment is AC, so you have to convert it to DC, for DCC operation.

As Khier says, it has to be a big deal,  with a big expense.

Mike.

  • Member since
    September 2014
  • From: 10,430’ (3,179 m)
  • 2,277 posts
Posted by jjdamnit on Monday, April 29, 2019 5:16 PM

Hello All,

The OP is talking about converting his European locomotive to Digital Command Control (DCC) and the responder is talking about Direct Current (DC). 

Am I missing something?

On a recent trip to Germany I fell in love with the Class G 2000 BB Vossloh Diesel locomotive while at a hobby shop. 

At €329.99 ($369.59)+S/H I'll have to save my pennies to afford this beauty.

According to the Märklin web site new European models also run on DCC.

Congratulations to the OP on his conversion and many happy hours of running.

Hope this helps.

"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"

  • Member since
    November 2016
  • 196 posts
Posted by khier on Monday, April 22, 2019 1:43 PM

Congratulations. Converting a Märklin to the DC world is not only a pricy undertake, but a pain in the..... Neck as well. I am dreaming of converting steam locomotives to DC but it is an order of magnitude more difficult than diesel and electro. My other which is to get an ATSF Alco PA. But the engines themselves are more expensive than brand new Walthers consist plus the parts and two decoders make it less attractive even if the nose profile looks better than any other H0 PA.

  • Member since
    April 2019
  • 2 posts
Converted a Märklin 36627 SBB Alpäzähmer to DCC
Posted by ntableman on Monday, April 8, 2019 6:57 AM

I have a Märklin 36627 that was just sitting here as all my other "stuff" is DCC. I swapped out the trucks to Trix ones and it ran perfectly on my ECoS in M4 mode and then removed the decoder and put in an ESU DCC one and it worked great. I keep searching for ways to make Märklin train run, but only find info on older ones.

The hardest part was finding the Trix part numbers and I stumbed on this by chance: when I looked at the part numbers for the Märklin version they were listed as being for a different model. I was then able to find the Trix version of that second model and look up the part #s for Märklin.

So the Märklin 36627 uses:

TRIX E171156 Zubehör-Set Antriebseinh. vor

TRIX E171174 Zubehör-Set Antriebseinh.hint

Popped the plastic clip and maybe 2 min of soldering and it was running! Given the cost of the parts (about 60$ for the trucks and 90$ for the new decoder) the cost is barely worth it. But I really like this lok and wanted to make it work.

Tags: conversion , DCC , M4 , Märklin

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