At the end of March, I bought an Intermountain CN SD40-2W with DCC aaaannnddd.... it doesn't work at all on my DC layout. Not even any current draw - 0 milliamps - basically, it's brain dead. Electronics is my bread-winner. So I decided to see what was wrong. All the passive components were OK (diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). Bleep this, I'm making it a new brain. Not sophisticated, just enough to have it pull my trains around when I turn up the voltage. Take off the second C off of DCC. Yes, I probably could set a CV or something or other to make it go DC. Small obstacle: the board seems dead anyway. Bigger obstacle: I have no DCC equipment, period. My cellphone is also an 11-year old flip phone which is actually a phone. I cobbled together a new DC board from spare parts and a proto board I also discovered while rummaging around. One of those things that spark a "I didn't know I had this!" exclamation. I filed 1 mm from each side of the new board to fit it inside the long hood. First up was wiring right and left sides onto two bus wires underneath the board. Then the motor straight to those. It ran! This morning, I wired up the front and rear headlights and tested that. Now I'm in the mood for dancing! Current status (with old DCC board included): Next step is to unravel that rat's nest of little enameled wires so I can light up the ditch lights and number boards (what the other two of the three diode/resistor pairs are for). I hate those enameled wires when they're close to each other and metal things - that's just begging for a short to happen. A fun little project!
Don't you just love it when a plan comes together! Glad it worked out for you. I really enjoyed a simpler world when just about anything could be fixed with bailing wire and duct tape. Ralph
What makes it easier with the LED lighting is the diode test function on my multimeter. There's just enough test current going through to light up an LED just enough to see in a well lit room. Then I know that the red probe was on the anode (+) and the black one was on the cathode (-). That's going to help when I get to sorting out the mess of wires to the ditch lights and number boards.
