Ok, I need a little help. I've taken on a project from a friend to repair and install dcc into his mallet. The decoder went in fine and dandy. But the harness between the tender and engine is damaged. It runs and operates like it should but I'm afraid its eventually going to short out and fry the decoder. It would be really simple to swap out the harness assembly if I could find one. So far Walthers wasn't any help as they only have minimal parts and this happens to be one they don't. So my question is would anyone know where else I could look? Or, might there be someone with a dead/broken engine with "spare" parts.... I am also open to hear what others have done in this situation. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Dennis
You may be able to apply some liquid electrical tape if the copper wire isn't damaged. Hope this helps. Harold
What's damaged about it? It's just wires in a plastic plug, so seemingly fixable unless you stepped on it or something... Cheers, -Mark
Here is a pic to show the issue. Just below the arrow is a few bare spots on thr wires with a couple errant strands poking out. The loco actually did come with dcc installed from the fractory as your pic Spookshow. But somehow the decoder went poof while it was idling in the yard during a break. It had been running fine for a couple of hours that day and was parked for a drink break. When he came back to run it out to the main it wouldn't respond. Closer inspection showed a nice burn mark on the decoder. He couldn't find an original replacement, so he bought a loksound micro select with the mallet files. That's what I just put in. Just took out the old factory board and soldered in the new. No isses there. The part I am trying to find is the green board and wire harness that connects the engine to the tender. I'd even be happy with just the wires and the little white plug. The liquid tape was already tried... it did work for a bit, but with the plug-and-unplug to put it away after trips to the club it's starting to wear out. It also stiffened it up quite a bit so that the tender doesn't sit right on the rails. Kinda leaning over and lifting the wheels a little sometimes.
If the wires are intact and carrying current what about slitting some shrink tube slipping it over the wires, and setting them with some heat from a soldering iron tip. Beats trying to put a bit of electrical tape in the small area which would be the next choice. And someone earlier suggested some liquid insulation which might work if all the protruding wire ends are taken care of. I product I have never used or heard of. You might also want to check out micro mini connectors. Soundtraxx comes to mind but there are others.
Or how about replacing the connector. It looks like you have more than enough wire to install a different plug...or to cut out the fraying wires and installing shrink tubing.
Both TCS and Digitrax make various harness/plug combos. I think you could find something there, woo woo woo has them listed under "harnesses". Bob.
This is the product I have reference to: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Bender-4-fl-oz-Liquid-Electrical-Tape-LTB-400/100119178
