Re-Motoring Walthers Heritage 2-8-8-2

[mmagliaro]

Indeed, when I said bypass the decoder, I meant BYPASS THE DECODER

On engines that have a circuit board in the tender that just has a plug-in socket for the board or for the decoder,
this isn't too hard.  The Athearn Challenger, for example, can be bypassed by unplugging the connector inside the tender,
and then putting jumpers into the connector holes (I think it was two jumpers from 1-2 and 4-5).

I don't know how hard it is on this 2-8-8-2.  But yes, your point is well-taken.  The decoder has to be out of the circuit
completely.

[peteski]

I wasn't challenging your statement Max - just really drive the point about fully removing (bypassing) the DCC decoder to be able to properly evaluate the motor/mechanism.

Not everybody is as familiar with electrical and mechanical aspects of a model locomotive as you or me, or very comfortable taking the mechanism apart or bypassing a decoder.  It is modelers like that I was trying to address in my statement.  I could see someone like that thinking that if a decoder is a dual-model decoder, they could perform the DC mechanism test simply by running the decoder-equipped loco using a conventional DC throttle.  That's all.   I'll shut up now.