Has anyone out there installed a decoder in an N scale Bachman Spectrum Dash8? I have the MRC AD330 Decoder for 4 of these units. If you have, please share any tips or tricks.
I have not seen one converted, per se. I think the only one I have seen running DCC used a Kato Dash9 chassis, but I don't know what modifications were necessary(if any) besides a lot of $$$ I checked several DCC sites, but could find no references to this conversion. What type of frame is used? It is not a split frame design is it? Where there is a will (and a Dremel or hacksaw) there is a way Harold
I just came in from the garage. I dismantaled one unit. Yes, it is a split frame design and even has a circuit board for the lights but the board mounts to the upper body. My preliminary guess as to go about this is to eliminate all or part of the circuit board and somehow mount the led's with resistors semi-permanantly to either end. This leaves room just behind the cab where the (hump) in the loco is for the decoder if I mill about 1/8" off of the forward part of the split frame. This still leaves room for the forward screw/nut that holds the halves together. This is only my first guess, but there aren't too many other options. All of which involve butchering the light board in some form or another.
Can the light board (completely). It is split frame, so you are set there. Now just get a decoder that fits those dimensions. There should be plenty of room for a normal Digitrax decoder in there.
This sounds like the same set up as the HO version. Remove the light board, drill a hole in each frame half, isolate the motor leads from the frame, tap holes drilled in frame use these holes for pwr pick-up put a screw into the holes and solder the wires to the screws, mount decoder to the frame with two sided tape. This is how I did my Ho versions it sounds like the N scale is a smaller version of the HO. Hope this helps.
I've got the loco wired and working as far as the motor and direction, but I can't figure the headlights out. Do I need the resisters from the circuit board for the led headlights? Will the headlights work right with the 20ohm resister hooked to the test track?
Hi Harold. Could you elaborate a little? Or is this just more idle Bachman bashing? I've just about figured this set up out and it will be a slick install. Maybe I'll do an artical for one of the magazines. As a side note I just don't see the big problem with the Spectrum N scale Dash8's. I have 6 that run excellently. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've run these 6 at Ntrak meets 'til the wheels fall off, except they didn't fall off! Sure I had to do some tweaking on the pickups and such but hey! I didn't pay over $30 for any of them, and truthfully, they are much less troublesome than my Atlas SD60's.
My fleet consist mostly of Kato and Atlas units. I decided to install a decoder in a -8. After isolating the frame and motor and grinding the frame, the decoder was installed. I programmed it and tried to speed match (roughly) to be MU'd with my other units. It ran worst after the install. No power and the shell get a little warm. Ok, then I changed the brushes. Still runs poorly. I cancelled the idea of doing the other ones I have. Now they are execllent dummies. No bashing, just pure experience.
Hmmmmm. I do know that the Bachmann Dash8's run slower and draw more amperage than Atlas and Katos do. I used to only run them together but I have found that the new Atlas GP38's with the slower speed motor MU pretty well with the -8's. If I ever come across several Kato U33C's I will probably use them on the -8 bodies as I have put a lot of time into detailing 4 of the 6 that I have.
I don't know how much room there is in this engine. Zimo just released a new, pretty small N-Scale decoder. It measures 0.56x0.36x0.12 inches. It operates between 12 and 24 Volts, produces 1.5Amps of peak and .7Amps of continuous power. It "cranks" the motor selectively at 50 to 150HZ or at high frequency of 16kHz or 32kHz for noiseless operation! Excellent Back-EMF. 128 speed steps, exponantial and adaptive acceleration, on the main programing and of course fully NMRA compatible. It comes with a 6 pin, 8 pin or no plug (hardwire). BTW, where did You guys get those nice flags?
Well.....I've got 4 decoders installed in my Spectrum Dash8's. Here are a few things that I've learned. There are two different styles of chassis for these locos. Both are split frame but they have slight differences. One has little contact springs that contact the brush holders on the motor. You take out the springs and you've pretty much isolated the motor. On these locos, the wheels snap into the truck frames. This set-up is the better of the two and I assume that this is the later version. On the other style chassis, the motor brush holders make contact to the frame itself and much more work is required grinding out material to isolate the motor. On these the wheels just sit in the truck frames with the snap on bottom half holding them on. The MRC decoder fits in a one inch slot .075 deep, just behind the cab fitting in the hump behind the cab. Using a big lathe file to hog out the material, it didn't take that long to file the slot out. I scrapped the light board and used 14volt bulbs mounted in 1/8" aluminum tubing isolated with heat shrink tube. A few hints. Use scotch brite to buff the areas on the frame halves where the pickups make contact. I improved wheel to pickup contact by using little .007" thick brass washers placed between the inside of the wheels and the contact strips. These washers are intended for use on electric radio control cars as motor mount contact washers. What a difference! These units DO NOT stall on turnouts at all now and run flawlessly.
So you want a cool flag eh? Well go to the top of the page here and read the bottom line of the very top box at the top of the page. Follow the directs posted there and you can have just about any flag that you would like!! Hope this helps.
