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Ok so im hoping the wifey can get my the NCE procab setup for christmas. If she does i want to add dcc to some of my loco's. I currently have almost all RTR power plus 3 genesis units. The tsunami decoders say they are plug and play for the genesis. What is the difference between the genesis decoders and the decoders that I would use on the RTR units? The 3 genesis units that I have use the older style board with no dcc harness like the newer rtr units use.
The ones for your locomotives are direct-wire, rather than plug-n-play. It's a little more involved, but not much. You've got the two front truck wires, two rear truck wires, two motor wires, and connections for the headlights (two each for however many headlights you have), and the speaker wires. It's easier than it sounds, I had one hooked up in about 20 minutes. It should be the TSU AT1000.
Be very carefull with the lights - that is unless you want to replace them
The Tsunami might be better than the Digitrax replacement board I used in a Genesis SD70M. At least in the Digitrax case, replacement means it sort of fits and not that all wires can simply be connected in their proper place and everything will work. There were no issues other than lights and the wire retainers (board too thick and must solder).
I am still digesting and testing to formulate my next questions after Jim(UP2CSX) and Bob(NCMRDISPATCHER) have kindly answered my first ones.
That's a good point, many lights are the 1.5 volt variety, and if the outputs of the decoder are too high, you will have a very bright, very brief, light. Think "flashbulb".
I just bought a procab and love it, you wont be disappointed with it As for the hard wiring of your RTR locos I made a thread about this like 2 weeks ago and got some great help/advice. I had never soldered anything before giving it a try and it was real easy.
wait. So if I want to add tsunami to my new RTR's i have to do soldering? there's no harness to plug into the athearn 9 pin plug?
and back to the genesis board. if i want to replace the original non dcc board in the older genesis', what will be needed? does anyone have any pictures?
Steve, you won't need to do any soldering if the locomotive has a nine pin harness. You only need to do soldering if it's one of the RTR's that still has the original BB type motor and drive. For the older Genesis boards., all you have to do is remove it and replace it with the Tsunami board. There are terminals that use the same wires from the Genesis board. The connections are just friction fit so many modelers choose to solder those to maintain good conuctivity but it's not required.
The only soldering you may have to do is if you replace the headlight bulbs. Some of the Genesis bulbs are 1.5 volts and some are 12 volts. The instructions should tell you the voltage of the bulbs. If they are 12 volt, you'll have to either replacve the bulbs with 1.5 volt bulbs (or LED's) or solder a dropping resistor in series with the existing bulb if you want to keep it.
the motor's have the plastic mounts just the way they come installed from athearn. But I still can't figure out what the one black wire is that has a small brass piece with a hole in it. I figure it has to mount to the frame.
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As for the hard wiring of your RTR locos I made a thread about this like 2 weeks ago and got some great help/advice. I had never soldered anything before giving it a try and it was real easy.