Hello All,
A while back I acquired a Märklin HO scale Class G 2000 BB diesel locomotive in a limited run paint scheme.
I fell in love with this class of locomotives while visiting a hobby shop in Aachen, Germany, in 2019.
The unit I purchased was a three (3) rail European AC version with DCC. Trix makes a two (2) rail version with DCC, but not in the limited edition livery.
Later, I bought a pair of Trix two (2) rail trucks for this unit.
A few days ago I finally got around to swapping out the trucks.
Having no experience with three (3) rail AC locomotives, I had no idea how complicated this would be or if it would even work.
After reading the instructions- -yes, this helped- -I removed the shell.
The solder pads on the OEM decoder were straightforward: "A"- -Red; center pickup shoe, "B"- -Brown; wheel wipers (rail pickup).
Both brown wires from the wheel wipers on each truck were soldered together and then soldered to the B pad on each end of the decoder.
There was only a single red wire on one (1) set of trucks from the center pickup shoe. This was soldered to the A pad on one end of the decoder. The A pad on the other end was not used.
Replacement trucks were labeled Front & Rear and pre-wired.
The wires on the trucks had two (2) colors- -Red and Brown.
Simple enough!
After removing the three (3) rail trucks and installing the two (2) rail trucks, I soldered each wire to the corresponding pad on each end of the decoder.
Before programming any CVs, I put it on the pike, called up address 3, and fired it up.
All functions worked!!!
I replaced the shell, assigned the 4-digit address, turned the sound down, and off she ran in all her glory!
What I had anticipated as a possibly problematic upgrade turned out to take less time than it took to write this.
Thanks for reading.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Some days your the bug and some days the windshield. Glad it went smoothly for you.
Pete.
Okay, you're welcome for my having read your post. However, I'll thank you, in return, for posting a positive experience, with some details, especially on the sub-forum that causes so many of us fits over DCC, especially conversions.
I'm glad it worked for you. Good for confidence, but also a lot less anxiety-inducing now that it worked.
jjdamnitWhat I had anticipated as a possibly problematic upgrade turned out to take less time than it took to write this.
Hi jjdamnit,
Congratulations! I'm glad to hear that everything went so well.
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!