Reinstalling the decoder in a Powerline models T-class

Introduction

I have recenctly installed a new LokSound 5 micro decoder in my T-class from Powerline models. I have written an article about that installation. The decoder itself seems to work flawlessly most of the time. However I encountered a strange issue where the lights where always on in the forward direction when powering up the locomotive. The problem would usually go away if I simply ran the train for some time and turned the lights off and on. However that was not alway the case. Sometimes the light would just stay on no matter what I did.

The lighting issue has occured earlier with both the ESU and Soundtraxx decoder, but in the previous cases it was just a squezed wire. That was not the case this time.

My previous installation attempt had some other issues that could be a contributing factor to this strange issue:

• Messy wireing
• Engine wired backwards
• Incorrectly mounted speaker

I also noticed that it was possible for me to independently control the headlights and the tail lights by wireing the decoder differently.

All of this factors where good reasons to redo the entire decoder installation.

Tools

I used the following tools for reinstalling the decoder.

Shrink tubes from Sondtraxx where used to protect the solder joint. I used Brawa decoder wire 32407 where the exising wires where too short. I didn't need the desoldering pump this time, as it wasnt possible to reuse the wire ends without stripping the wires again. Tip activator wasn't needed either, but I had it ready in case of problems with my soldering iron.

Disconnecting the old wires

The old wireing where remove by cuting open the shrink tubes and then striping the wires once more as it was not possible to reuse the ends. It was possible for me to restrip all of the wires, as I had enough slack on the wires from the previous installation.

I also had to resolder one of the speaker wires, as it broke of when taking of the speaker. The bellow picture shows the locomotive after removing all the shrink tubes.

Reinstalling wires

The first step I did was to properly assemble the speaker. That involved attaching the included speaker case to the actual speaker. The proper way to do it would be to use some glue, but I decided to just put an office tape around the speaker and its casing in order to secure it.

I also decided to swap the posistion of the decoder and the speaker. I secured the decoder to the chassis using double-sided tape. Below is a picture of the locomotive after all the soldering was done and before the speaker was secured to the chassis.

The bellow table shows how I did the wireing this time. Notice how I now have used AUX1 and AUX2 for the tail lights. Also notice the way I have wired the motor now.

Decoder wire	Function	Locomotive wire
Orrange wire	Motor	Black wire
Grey wire	Motor	Red wire
Black wire	RHS pickup	Black wire from the rear and red wire from the front
Red wire	LHS pickup	Black wire from the front and red wire from the rear
Yellow wire	Rear light	Blue wire from rear
White wire	Front light	Blue wire from front
Blue wire	Common wire for all lights	White wire from front and white wire from rear.
Green wire	Light, AUX1	Red wire from rear
Violet wire	Light, AUX2	Red wire from front

I then secured the speaker to the chassis using office tape. The wireing is still messy, but I would say that it has improved from the previous installation attempt.

The next step was to change the decoder programming. The programming was changed as follows:

• I removed the default programming for AUX1 and AUX2.
• AUX1 was reprogrammed to be enabled when F6 was active and the locomotive direction set to forward.
• AUX2 was reprogrammed to be enabled when F6 was active and the locomotive direction set to reverse.
• I changed the locomotive direction back to normal.
• All the lights outputs where programmed as dimmable LEDs.

The initials tests are promising. It looks like reinstalling the decoder solved the lighting issues! The sound will hopefully be better now, as the speaker is installed with its casing this time.