4 pin decoders and DCC ready

[Twodinners]

Hi all

i’m very new to model railways, and have just acquired a quite a few Hornby locos of various ages, as well as a few boxes of decoders, most of which are R7274’s, my question is can these decoders be used on all DCC ready locos? Or do I also need to get some R8249’s? There are some brand new locos and some very old ones, can every loco be converted to DCC?

sorry if this is a vague question, but I’m very new to modelling.

thanks all

sam

[Rog RJ]

Virtually all locos can be converted to DCC, it's just a case of how hard is it to do and is it worth it.

DCC ready means there is a socket fitted to allow a suitable decoder to be fitted, it does NOT mean it already has a decoder fitted or supplied.

R7274 decoders are designed to plug into 4 pin sockets, mainly in small Hornby models. They could be converted to fit an 8 pin socket by cutting of or desoldering the 4 pin plug and replacing it with an 8 pin plug; is it worth the hassle? You could also cut off the plugs and use them to hard wire (solder in) models that don't have a socket fitted.

8 pin decoders and/or sockets are fitted to most Hornby locos, but some have 21 pin sockets, these are usually older sound fitted models. More recent Hornby sound fitted models use the TTS decoders which are all 8 pin, I believe.

Check each loco individually to see what socket is fitted and then buy a matching decoder.

There are many decoder makers and some of the best are Zimo, Lenz and ESU. Hornby decoders are OK but have a limited range of adjustments (CVs - Configuration Variables)

[ColinB]

If it is a small loco get them converted to 6 pin, having a 4 pin socket means you are limited to Hornby decoders. Not a good idea to hard wire the decoder as firstly if you ever sell the loco you have to sell it as DCC fitted, which seems to be a smaller market and you won't get anymore for the fact you are adding in a £20 decoder to the sale. Secondly if you ever want to check where it is a loco fault or decoder fault, you have lost the ability to easily check by simply removing the decoder and replacing it with a DC header.

[Going Spare]

Welcome to the forum and to the start of your new journey.

Before contemplating fitting a DCC decoder, let alone modifying a loco to take a decoder, make sure it runs well under DC (analogue) control first, even the brand new ones. If it doesn't, find out why and remedy - it will perform much worse when running under DCC control if you don't.

[Twodinners]

Hi All

great, thank you all for the help, much appreciated, I’ll start some investigations and testing of my locos, my soldering skills are pretty shabby so I’ll get practicing on that too.

can’t wait to get started!!

thanks again everyone!

Cheers

Sam