Just hook up the red and black to your DCC system with some test leads- hook up a spare motor to the orange and gray from the decoder. should run on address 3. The voltage you see on the outputs of an decoder is a pulsed voltage.
Tried what you said and got nothing except the lights work. The decoder is going back. I'll let TCS tell me what is the problem.
DCC outputs (track power and control packets) are square wave alternating current (AC). Although I've not seen a print for a decoder, I would wager there are circuits on them that accept only half of the wave form for engine and accessory (lights,sound, etc) power. So, what the drive motor gets is an interrupted DC, one of the major reasons motors tend to heat up more than if they were running on a DC system - each change in polarity is akin to turning a switch off and on so the surge current, however small, is almost always present.
As a follow up, the decoder was sent to TCS and I got a message from them that they are replacing the decoder. So all is well.
