Help needed to DCC fit a Hornby 14xx

[Jason-1210315]

Hi everyone, I have decided to DCC fit my Hornby 14xx. I have removed the body and can see that the motor has only red and black wires attached, plus what looks like a capacitor of some sort all wired to the same spot. Is it possible to do this job. Thanks

[Fishmanoz]

Hi Jason, welcome to the forums. It seems to be service sheet 227 which confirms your description.

It looks to be a simple can motor fit. All you have to do is disconnect everything from the motor, discard that capacitor then use a basic 8-pin decoder like the Hornby R8249. The only connections needed are decoder red and black wires to existing pickup red and black (makes no difference which way around), then decoder orange and grey to motor connections. If orange and grey are back to front then loco will run backwards when controller is saying forwards, so test before refitting the body and swap if it runs backwards.

You can do all of this by cutting off the decoder plug and soldering directly. However, best practice says first fit an 8-pin socket to the loco and plug the decoder in to it, assuming you have room. Socket wiring can be found by googling Brian Lambert and going to his DCC pages to find his socket diagrams. You only need to connect 4 wires to it - the pickup red and black then 2 motor connections. The purple flying lead not connected to the plug on the decoder is unused but should be insulated so it cannot short to anything.

[Jason-1210315]

Thankyou Fishmanoz, I have fitted a few decoders to the old ringfields and this job seemed almost too simple, I thought I was missing something! Thank you for your help.

[Fishmanoz]

Thanks for the feedback Jason. Yes, very similar to most more modern 0-4-0s and 0-6-0s and simple. Certainly nothing more complicated like a Ringfield drawing more than 500mA or needing LH motor brush holder isolated from chassis.

[ColinB]

When I did this to my locos, I fitted a 6 pin socket as it gives you more room. I then used a Zimo direct plug in 6 pin decoder which happily handles the current. As I am always saying the socket gives you the ability of easily converting back to DC if you ever have issues with the loco.