Converting silver seal ringfield to Dcc

[Britsax]

How do I insulate motorbody from chassis and wheels. Stripped DC wires off brushes tabs. Wired up grey orange red and black wires. Left until later the head code lights. Programmed to loco Class 47 then onto main  track .. smoke rose from module .. blown it. Back to the bench. Desoldered  all wires. Circuit tester still shows connection between brushes and or motor body with wheels. Is it possible to convert this ringfield motor as the whole body is in contact with chassis and wheels.

All help gratefully received.

[jane1707819582]

Yes it is possible. There is an electrical connection on the left brush holder and the chassis this needs isolating .

[Chrissaf]

See Ringfield conversion 'Method 2' on this page:

https://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/DCC_Page_1.html#Bookmark12

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[96RAF]

Normally when there is a wiring problem like this the fault will show up on the programming track where the current put out by most DCC controllers is too low to cause damage.

[Rog RJ]

Britsax said "How do I insulate motorbody from chassis and wheels."

 

You don't.  What you need to do is insulate the left hand brush connection from the motor body.  The motor body doesn't need insulating from the chassis.

[ColinB]

I have converted a lot of my ringfield motors. The thing that catches a lot of people out is the lug underneath one of the motor brush connections or the long screw that holds one of the brush holders on.What I do is if it is one where the brush holder screw screws directly into to chassis, I retap the hole to take a metric screw and then use nylon screws, I normally do it for both bushes so it stops you in the future getting mixed up. Remember having converted you will probably going to use a DCC decoder, so you don't want to blow it up because you put the wrong screw back. Alternatively, some people just screw a nylon screw into the existing hole.For the ones with the lug, just snap of that piece of the brush holder.

Now when you come to do the changes to make it DCC compatible, use an 8 pin socket. Now wire to the socket. Finally before you put the DCC decoder in, there are three things you should do. Firstly check between pins 1 and 4, pins 1 and 8, pins 5 and 4, finally 5 and 8 for a short circuit. Secondly put the loco on the track check for a short circuit between pins 1 and tracks right and left, then 5 and tracks right and left. Assuming all is ok, then put a dc blank header into the dcc socket and check the loco runs. Now you can fit the DCC decoder.  I blew up many DCC decoders in my early days, I found this technique works. If you don't want to use an expensive DCC socket you buy cheap ones off the auction site, alternatively make one with veroboard and socket strip. If you have a diesel there is a guy on off the auction site that does a nearly nice one that brings out the lights to separate connections and it is cheaper than the Hornby one, shame he only started selling them after I converted my diesels. I use the Horny ones as it makes the conversion look professional.