# DCC and sound in HLW engines



## goofy trains (Jul 1, 2010)

Hi, I'm a beginner planning a small layout with a max of three trains. I'm very interested in HLW products, but wish to know if you can install DCC and sound in their non DCC-ready engines. Has anyone done this? I know that a few of their engines are "DCC-ready", but they are not the ones I am interested in. I have a HLW Mack to play with right now, and it is difficult to get it to run slow. At low voltage it may creep along but sometimes "breaks loose" and takes off at an unrealistic speed. I don't know if their larger engines have motors that act differently (?). Their manuals warn against using "pulse power", which they say may harm the motors. Thanks for any clarification!


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey Goofy.........

I've been running the HLW Big John's and the Big John power trucks for years with QSI and the qwire receiver, more recently with the new Aristo Craft REVOLUTION and they run just fine. They're very effecient and will run for long hours on batteries. Most of mine will run 6-8 hours and more on 4400 Mha Li-ions and they do extremely well on 11.1 volt batteries.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that you go for it.


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

Hey Goofy:

The HLW powertrucks we worked with so far are great and reliable runners. But the ones we had require modification. For DCC we need to get track power to the decoder and motor power back to the truck. The power trucks we have seen needed to be modified to have this 4 wire conversion. If you are handy this is really not a big deal, but if not you should have someone do it for you, or at least show you the first time around.


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## goofy trains (Jul 1, 2010)

Thanks Stan and Axel for the good info. I'm just in the planning stages but I think I'll go with HLW. Wow, made in the good ol' USA!


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

One important fact, I alomost forgot. You will open the motorblock to get your wires installed. When you finally assemble the motor block, do not tighten the screws to much or your motor block will become very noisy (almost like a grinding noise). To get a feel for the "correct" noise, you should run the block on the track before the conversion.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

I installed a decoder in a Mack. No problem. 

Just remember that you must remove the motor block from the bottom of the mack, do not touch the engine hoods, they will break. 

The motor block can be pryed out, look at it carefully.


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