WARNING: total Noob installing a dcc decoder!

Will , WELCOME !!!  No one would know you were a noob. That install is just fine and most do no even want to do it at all . (like me)

Looks fabulous!

Mike

sweet! thanks, I ended up getting TCS no. 1006 for the 4-4-0 today. i will post prob in this forum once I get it started. and thanks for the thin wall tip- I didnt even think to look for that last time i went to fry's (electronics). youll hear from me soon!

Will

I just tried and prevailed! lol. I saw another example of the 4-4-0 on a site, but I did not want to follow his since he scratchbuilt the light housing and part of the boiler. I need to take it back apart to oil it, but heres a list of things I did:

1) took the entire tender apart, and drilled a 1/16" hole through the front weight in the tender. this is where I ran the forward light wires through.

2) I cut the feeder strips down to about 1/8" and soldered the red and black wires to these tiny tabs

I then soldered the orange and grey wires to the correct terminals on the motor. I also taped them to keep any shorts from happening.

the moor sits nicely back into the tender, and the decoder itself will be glued to the top of the tender/motor, with logs piled on top of it.

now with the weight back in, I drilled the hole going into the rear weight of the locomotive. this is where my camera died, so I couldnt take pictures of the exact locations of the holes being drilled.

the wire went through the plastic top of the boiler, and also thru the brass bell. this was veeeeery stressful, since the 1/16" drillbit was dangerously close to the forward angle of the boiler. from the front of the gear there was barely enough room to drill a 30 degree angle to match this hole. the top of the front weight was trimmed by 3/16" to allow room for my resistor and monstrous heatshrink. lol. the holes for the light were simple:

1) hole was drilled from under the lamp housing with the front of the boiler removed. to drill this hole I had to drill a small hole thru the front platform first, but can be painted later.

2) hole drilled into the lamp housing for the lamp itself. i used an x-acto knife to shave away plastic to make the hole look more "centered".

3) a 45 deg. angled hole was drilled for the lamp to run right into the housing. all that needed to be done was to glue the lamp in place, and put the front of the boiler back together. the front of the boiler is almost like a cap, and a small part had to be shaved away to make room for the wires.

Like i said before, I am sorry that my camera failed but i tried to take some pictures of the end result. here is a pic of where i drilled the holes for reference, with arrows showing which direction they were drilled. the yellow box is where the top of the weight was modified for resisto and wire clearance:

next time I will make sure my camers WORKS before and during the next decoder install I do. hope you enjoy! please ask any questions, I love answering them!

one last note: the light buld I used was a miniatronics corp. no. 18-001-10 bulb. it is a 1.5V 15 mA 1.2mm dia. bulb, and it fit PERFECTLY! the resistor was higher in resistance for a dimmer bulb.