DCC Conversion of Bachmann 08 Shunter

Model Railways On-Line - DCC Conversion of Bachmann 08 Shunter

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The fitting of a DCC decoder to the Bachmann 08 shunter is a straight forward process. The topic of how to take the loco apart is often the discussion of many a group. The first step is to remove the couplings to reveal the two screws which attached the body to the footplate. These screws are indicated in blue below:

Beware that on the driver's side of this loco, there is a small wire fitting for the front 'lights' which attaches to the frames at the top of the front steps (indicated in red above). This must be gently pulled out of the frames as it is attached to the body and will prevent removal.
Once the screws are undone, use a thin blade on the back of the loco to lever body away from the chassis. There is a single lug on the right side as you look at the back of the loco which easily releases when eased. The front of the body has a tuck in lug, so the body must be removed by lifting the cab.

The circuit board indicated in blue above must be removed by undoing its two retaining screws. The wires to the motor must be unsoldered from the motor and detached from the pickup strip running along the side of the loco at the base of the motor assembly (indicated in red).

Once the circuit board as been removed, the decoder, in this case, a TCS-M1 as this is very small, can be located in its place using double-sided tape.
The red and black wires are attached to the pickup strip (indicated in blue) and the grey and orange wires are attached to the motor (indicated in red).
One of the notorious problems with this model is that the pickups run on the treads of the wheels instead of the backs of the flanges and this is often a cause of pickup problems. While fitting a decoder to this model, it is a good idea to take the opportunity to fit extra pickups and attached these to the standard pickup strip (indicated in yellow above and below).

Once the new pickups are fitted, the next task is to test the loco on DC and DCC.

Locomotive supplied by:

Graham Plowman

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