Bob's way to attach the decoder to the lightboard works like a charm! I have done 4 DCC (non-sound) conversion following his guidance and they all work flawlessly. Cheers Dirk
Bob is right, your problem centers on the drawbar and tender connections. Never solder to the drawbar or the tender trucks directly. As mentioned above, the copper pickup wipers in the floor of the tender provide pressure on the axle pickups in the tender and without them, the power pickup is horrible. I have a beautifully painted and weathered Mikado that was given to me because it did not run. I dug into to find a sloppy decoder install that was done exactly as you are describing what you have been through. It was a first generation Mikado which suffered from drivers with a weak connection, the tender wipers were missing, wires were soldered to each of the tender trucks, the drawbar was soldered to the front tender truck.....all in all it was a mess. After unsoldering everything, fabricating some new tender pickup strips, cleaning and straightening the drawbar and a general rebuild, it runs decent now. Still not the best running Mike I have, but it doesn't stall anymore. I have another tender and drawbar to put on it but I fixxed what as there, more for the challenge than anything.
