# Putting DCC into a HLW bus.



## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Ok, I have a TCS G8 decoder in hand, and a HLW rail bus on the way. Has anyone here put DCC into on of these? Or something similar?



http://www.h-l-w.com/doozie.html



Any tips or tricks? Or things to watch out for?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

After the battery mafia got upset by me saying DCC is easier on LSC hopefully they won't invade the DCC forum here ha ha!

Dennis, this is simple... I believe the motor block has 4 wires, 2 for the motor and 2 for the track pickups.

We've done "online installs" before... be happy to help you.

open it up and shoot some pictures... DCC wiring is much easier than many people believe, there's a lot of old wive's tales about DCC mostly from the Fred Flintstone days.

Usually the biggest pain is lighting, when the lights are connected to the track or weird voltages.

I'm all DCC and have never regretted the decision... and I'm not biased against battery, just the features and flexibility of DCC makes more sense for what I want.

I've even done installs over the phone, I used to have a 2 hour commute each way and a buddy and I did several "phone call" installs...

So, if you would like a hand, it is offered.

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Thanks. I'll have to see what things look like when it gets here. Should be pretty straight-forward. But who knows. I've never installed one before.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

I believe the HLW rail bus has a 2 wire block, but is easy to modify as there are 2 wires on the motor connected to track pickup strips. Just unsolder these wires and splice them to reach the decoder.
Also I believe there was 2 metal strips on the bottom floor that fed power to all lights.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Believe me, between Dan and I we can talk you through this.

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Cool. It's supposed to be here tomorrow. Good service from Reindeer Pass.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

He's a good guy, and one of the main G scale "survivors".

Greg


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

No sound?


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Not right now.


The rail bus is here. Haven't opened it yet. I have to go put away groceries and start prepping steaks. We're celebrating my wife's clean biopsy results.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Posting to make sure I get updates, I've got the same Doozie-DCC issue.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

The new rail bus for Sprite City Transit Authority is in. Now I have to figure out how to take it apart...


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Look along the edge of the roof on both sides, find a small brad, pull out to
remove the roof.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Yeah, I found that already. I want to get the body off, too.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Ok, folks. Here we go!

In pic 1, you can see the wiring in the passenger compartment.Just right of center, there is a hole that goes down to the motor block. There are four wires coming out. Blue and grey should be the pickups. Heavier gauge red and black should be the motor. All the other lighter gauge red and black wires are for lights. 

All the wiring exits to the left and goes into the luggage compartment.


*Pic 1*










Pic 2 shows where the wiring ends up in the luggage compartment. In here, all the reds and the blue are wired together and all the blacks and the grey are wired together. 


*Pic 2*










The G8 decoder has hookups for Track +, Track -, Motor +, Motor -, Front light, and Reverse light. It also has 6 function connections, a ground and 3 x 12v+.

According to the Hartland documentation, Red and Grey are positive and Black and Blue are negative. This seems weird to me, as they have the grey (+) bundled with the blacks (-), and the Blue (-) is bundled with the Reds (+). Am I missing something here? Are they using the Blue and Grey leads as returns for the circuit?

So, following the documentation, Blue goes to Track -, Grey to Track +, Heavy Red to Motor +, Heavy Black to Motor -.

I don't think this thing has any reverse lights. so all red light wires would go to the Front light terminal? And then where do the blacks go? Ground?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

OK, so the first rule of DCC wiring, do not trust anyone.

You need to verify the function of each of the 4 wires.

So you want to tag where the 4 wires from the motor block go to, and then disconnect them. (all 4)

Then with an ohmmeter verify their function.

my guess is the red and black are track pickups and the grey and blue the motor.

if you connect red to grey, and separately connect black to blue, you would be connecting the track pickups to the motor (normal for DC).

Validate this with the meter... 

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Already checked. The red and black connect directly to the motor, and the blue and grey hook to the track pick ups, and there is no connection between the blue/grey and the red/black.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Great, so what I do here, is just prove out the decoder. Run it and make sure nothing weird.

Then attack the lights. Are they incandescent?


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Yes, they are.


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

The G8 does not appear to have regulated outputs. We got TCS to provide 12V regulated in the sound decoders. So make sure that the lighting will take full track voltage before connecting.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

If not, we'll find out. They're small incandescent lamps. If they won't, I'll replace them with something that will. However, the G8 does have 3 hookups marked +12v and a ground.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Alright. It lives.
Right now only the rear track pickups are hooked up.
Left to do...
Disconnect dcc board
Lengthen wiring
Hook up motor/rear track pickups/front track pickups
Figure out how to hook up lights
Mount board
Reassemble rail bus
Program as needed


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

That +12v on the decoder might be misleading, it might be rectified track voltage ASSUMED to be standard HO DCC voltage levels. This has happened a number of times, especially in large scale when using HO decoders.

I'd measure it on the board first while on the track. If the bulbs are small, they might be within the rating of the decoder, current wise.

Unfortunately, you might have to put a large wattage resistor in it if all this is so, for example if you are trying to drop 12v at 100 milliamps that's 1.2 watts and you should use a 2 watt resistor in this case...

I've done this when it was too much a pain to replace the bulbs (USA Trains diesels are famous for this).

Great progress Daniel, clearly you understand volts, amps, and using a meter... 

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

I'm an industrial diagnostic electrician. I work on the electrical systems, motors, and computers in these...












I have little experience working with DCC in general, but lots of electrical/electronic experience.


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Testing again. Both sets of pickups attached. This was the only 'oops' I ran into. when hooking up the wiring from the front truck, the red positive lead and the black negative lead have to be reversed. Red positive goes into the 'track -' terminal, and black negative goes into the 'Track +' terminal. otherwise you get a short circuit error.

The track was a quick throw down from spare track, which is really dirty, so it ran very well, in my opinion.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Yeah, so nice to work when someone already understands those concepts.

The lights look really bright, did you wire them directly to the decoder?

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

Pretty much. I'm still messing around with that. I still need to figure out which wire goes to the function and where the other wire goes.

BTW - Thanks for the help.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

if they are incandescents, either wire will go to the function output, and the other wire should go to the common, usually a blue wire.

Just looked at the manual for the first time, pretty brief!

I would say that the common would be any of the +12v terminals.

Functions are really not outputs, but when active they are connected to ground, so the other wire needs + volts.... the "blue" / function common is always positive volts.

Have you measured between "12 volts" and the ground? Be interested what you get.

Also, I forgot, what is your DCC track voltage (approx).

Greg


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## Dennis Cherry (Feb 16, 2008)

Huh? What? said:


> If not, we'll find out. They're small incandescent lamps. If they won't, I'll replace them with something that will. However, the G8 does have 3 hookups marked +12v and a ground.


Seems TCS made a production change from the first run. My G8's have the '"+" sign and are not regulated, no biggie since I am using a 16 volt power supply and all the internal circuits do have individual regulators. 

The newer ones are mark as 12 Volt is seems.

Dennis


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Ahh, so it really is a regulated 12 volts? Any way to tell what version you have? Just by the difference between + and +12?

That's useful information, considering the brevity of the manual.

Thanks Dennis.

Greg


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## Huh? What? (Jun 20, 2017)

I'll be back to this over the weekend. I'm doing my work week right now (four days, actually) but they're twelve hour days with a forty-five minute drive each way.


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