Converting ringfield tender driven locos to DCC.

[ColinB]

Slowly I am getting rid of my old tender driven locos, the good ones in boxes I sell, but I had a couple that have sat on my layout for years and aren't worth much, so I thought nothing to lose I will make them DCC ready, with a view to adding DCC. So I took someones advice from this site, and made the locos pick up power on both banks of wheels and basically do the opposite of Hornby, put the socket in the loco and connect to the tender with a 4 way wire with socket and plug. I was amazed, they work really well, previously the loco picked up one side of the supply and the tender the other. By making it pickup on all loco wheels they run round my layout without stalling. The 4-4-0 locos were really easy, Hornby decided to pickup power from the insulated side, so all I had to do was add a wire to the chassis. I have run them with DCC decoders in them and ok they don't run as well as the loco driven ones, but they are not that bad. Funny the A4's I converted had serious issues with the increased resistance of the extra pickup but the Duchess class ones, worked really well.

[Fishmanoz]

That will work fine as described by Colin - tender picking up from one side only, that side not being via the chassis.  If the tender is picking up from both sides, or one side via chassis, there may well be a connection to chassis via the left handed motor brush holder through the screw that holds it. If this connection is not broken (best way is to replace the screw with a nylon one), you will blow the decoder instantly. 

Best reference for detail is google Brian Lambert and check out the various Ringfield conversions on his DCC pages.