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I just purchased an Athearn SD-70 MAC with ditch lights and I was told a Digitrax DH165IP decoder will work with the unit. I opened the shell and there is a space for a 8 pin plug in decoder with nothing on it. There is also a 9 pin plug with a electronic circuit board attached to this.
Do I remove the circuit board attached to the 9 pin plug or leave this and plug the Digitrax Decoder into the 8 pin board?
Don't plug into the 8 pin, use the 9-pin plug for it. Remove the dummy plug and plug in your decoder.
Yes, take off the dummy plug, and plug it into the decoder body itself. The Atheanr 8-pin plug is not very reliable. (in some models, Athearn tells you to SOLDER THE PLUG TO THE SOCKET. That's very hard if at all possible since you'd have to be careful to not melt or warp the circuit board, not to set your decoder on fire, and to not let the solder run from one pin to the other.
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