Converting Roundhouse Box Cab to DCC?

[rrinker]

 On the Boxcab, the frame is one side of the rail pickup, and that brass bar along one side is the other (hence the plastic bushings in the screw holes for it). If you repalce the stock motor with a can motor that has two wires, such that neither brush is connected to the motor's case, this will work fine. If you have the version with the flywheel, tha flywheel is next to useless, so you could remove that and have a ton of room for a decoder. At one time I believe NWSL made gears for them to replace the not so good plastic ones that are extremely noisy, but I don't know if they still have that.  Unless you revamp the entire drive I wouldn;t bother with sound, the noise of the mechanism will overwhelm the sound decoder. They do run nice and slow, just loud.

                   --Randy

[cacole]

If you don't know how the power is picked up from the wheels by visual inspection of the assembly diagram, you need to get a cheap digital multimeter so you can trace the wiring.  Harbor Freight sometimes has them on sale for as little as $1.98 or $2.98.

Most of the noise from those old Roundhouse models was a combination of the cheap open frame motor being screwed down directly to the frame, and gears with lots of burrs on them.

[farrellaa]

I just finished assembling a Roundhouse HO Box Cab Diesel kit and it has an unusual drive system. I have a can motor that is almost a perfect replacment for the open frame one that came with it. My question is; has anyone converted one of these to DCC and does it have any issues I need to be aware of. The engine uses the chassis for power to one of the motor leads and the other is through the insulated truck mounting, I think? This is a very noisey engine and I think it is in the gearing and not the motor so I don't think it will get much quieter with DCC or a can motor, but if I want to run it on my  layout it needsto be DCC. I also plan to put some LED's in. Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

   -Bob