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Well a big shout out to Lyle Dowell of Des Plaines hobby for making this project come together. Without him it probably would have been ugly.
After spending a premium for one of these in N scale post war, I really didn't want to mess it up. With well over $1000 in this small train, there is no room for error as obtaining parts is near impossible.
I stopped by Des Plaines hobby as I have been dealing with Lyle for many years now, and asked him what decoder I needed. He offered a couple of different options. We decided to go with the ESU 58810. The main reason was, Lyle had created a custom sound file for his HO Pioneer Zephyr and was willing to share it with me. That made this particular decoder the top choice as the others didn't accept custom sound files.
Started the project a couple of weekends ago and it started out smooth. Con Cor basically had a step by step guide on how to install a older Digitrax decoder into the second car of thos train. Con Cor had already made a break away part of the interior that could be easily removed for a speaker in the passenger part of the car. In the baggage part of the car they outlined exactly what needed to be cut out of the interior to allow a decoder to fit. A tight fit for their decoder the advised at the time, but it fit. Perfect I am home free. Just plug in the decoder and I will still have time to do other things that day. Nope.
Apparently ESU used to sell this decoder with separate wires joined to the 8 pin plug. This would have helped as they would have the flexibility of being folded or even shortened if need be to make a more compact package. Unfortunately for me, ESU now went to the ribbon style wire harness that after many attempts was just too immobile and bulky to fit the tight quarters. There is a circuit board that runs over the top of the car and the ribbon made it that the body would not seat properly on the chassis because the ribbon no matter how it was positioned was just too big.
So I reach out to Lyle again and tell him what my problem is. He says bring it by and I will take a look. After seeing it he agreed there was a better way of doing it. After a quick talk he ordered up an ESU 51993 wire harness, next 18 socket to open wires.
A week later it arrives and I swing over to pick it up. Lyle had it and after he pondered it a little bit came up with a game plan. Lyle decided it would be best to solder the wires right into the female socket instead of adding the extra bulk of the 8 pin connector. Before I even had the words out of my mouth about how not confident I was that I would get it wired correctly, he already had the soldering iron warming up and said I will take care of it. To say I was happy to have someone with his experience making sure I didn't screw up a very expensive project would be an understatement . After a few minutes it was installed and I was on my way to finish the project. After running the speaker wires and fitting the speaker strategically to fit the biggest enclosure I could. I put some kapton tape over the top of the speaker to make sure no leads on the underside of the board would make contact. After that I used some kristal klear glue to glue the circuit board back in place and brought it back to Lyle. He programmed the decoder with his sound file and had me come in. The video link was the finished product on Des Plaines Hobbies test track.
I know there are some very accomplished people in this group with electronics and installs. But for the average guy like myself, I can't begin to describe what a blessing it is to have such a good train hobby shop so local to me with people as talented as Lyle is to help me through some sticky situations. Thanks Lyle and Des Plaines Hobby . I am very grateful
