Proto 2000 GP9 Phase II Conversion to DCC Help Needed. Looking for instructions for use of their light board (not rip out and rewire). This is the early model not having 8 pin NMRA DCC socket. I have searched the internet for hours looking for the detailed info and a decent pic of the 3rd X area to ensure cutting properly. Proto 2000 GP9 Phase II Conversion to DCC by Doorgunnerjgs posted Dec 4, 2016 at 11:56 AM Can anyone help? John
Begin by removing the body shell if necessary. Unplug the NMRA connector from the light board. Remove the two screws holding the light board to the chassis (Hold on to the screws you will need them later.) Once the board is out of the way, invert the NMRA plug and orient it so that the #1 pin (Orange) is toward the front of the short hood. A good practice would be to place some Kapton or electrical tape underneath the socket to insure that you do not have any unwanted grounds to the frame. Remove the wires for Pins 2 (Rear Headlight Yellow) and 6 (Front Headlight White) Install your dropping resistors (I used 330 ohm resistors for this installation, your needs may vary.) to the plug. Make a 90 degree bend close to the end of the wire so that the resistor will sit under the NMRA socket. Trim the wires for the headlights to length, giving yourself some extra, just in case! And after putting on some heat shrink tubing, solder them to the cut down ends of the dropping resistors. Plug in your decoder and harness and head for the programming track. Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
Thank you, but mine is the earlier version WITHOUT the NMRA 8 pin connector. It requires cutting light board traces and soldering to pads on it. I appreciate your response, though. Iohn
In my experience, the third X is sometimes on the bottom of the board. Have you unscrewed the board and checked on the other side? However, I'm inclined to say that ripping the whole thing out and hardwiring is not much different -- you have to replace the headlight bulbs or LEDs no matter what.