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Soldering Disaster


Will Hay

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So I temporarily converted a 'DCC Compatible' Flying Scotsman to DCC pending appropriate [60/40] solder and, on arrival, managed to lose some wires and break the decoder.

Cool.

:(

I'm intending to try again, and would simply like confirmation that I have sufficient wiring to succeed.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwowc3dwi2dbf41/20200130_204314.jpg?dl=0

 

I have a black and red which I assume is from the pickups, which I need to solder to the red and black of the decoder, and I have two wires which I guess are from the motor that I need to solder to the orange and grey.

 

Many thanks.

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Looking at your linked photo -

Red should be from the right wheels pickup and black from the left - connect these to the decoder same coloured wires and insulate.

The decoder orange and grey go to the motor brushes or wires alredy attached to them, again insulated joints .

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Well done. Its all down to practice.

A space saving method I have used to avoid the hedgehog look is to crop and fold back the end of the unwanted wires in a stepped length pattern so you can then sleeve them as one. I.e. very short, short, medium, long, longer. Like this...

 /media/tinymce_upload/ff1f532c11afe4bd55d6ae868b2e527c.jpg

The term often used is to cap and stow.

Also make sure the metal bits of the loco are insulated so the decoder stays safe.

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Yes.

Current advice to avoid overheating, is not to sleeve the decoder but to protect it from shorting by wrapping the adjacent loco bits in tape.

I have always loosely sleeved my decoders, just shrinking the sleeve ends a bit to hold the decoder inside - so far no burn outs.

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Thank you.

 

Now dead.

Coincided with cleaning wheels and, despite checking and double checking everything from wheel alignment to each solder, still dead.

Hornby select wont talk to the chip, flashes eight times when trying to allocate a number.

 

I assume the chip is fried?

:(

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