I was given an "Overland" train set for Christmas. Has anybody installed DCC to the locomotive. If so, what parts were used and an idea of the difficulity as there is not much info that comes with the set. Thanks.
I have not done one of these, but it should not be too hard if you know how to take the locomotive apart and put it back together and if you have good soldering skills. There is lots of room in the tender for the decoder. There are many decoders that can handle the current, which I would guess is less than one amp (you can measure it to be sure.) Then it is just a standard installation:
(1) disconnect the motor from the wheels.
(2) connect the motor terminal that was connected to the right wheels to the orange decoder wire.
(3) connect the other motor terminal to the grey wire.
(4) connect the right wheel pickups (locomotive and tender) to the red wire.
(5) connect the left wheel pickups (decoder and tender) to the black wire.
(6) connect the headlight to the blue and white wires. Make sure that the headlight wires are insulated from one another and anything metal that they run past.
(7) connect the backup light (if there is one on the tender) to the blue and yellow wires.
(8] make sure you insulate all the joints with shrink tubing. Do not use tape!
(9) mount the decoder with a small piece of double sided foam tape.
(10) if you have to extend any of the decoder wires between the tender and the locomotive, be sure to use fine, flexible wire. And leave a little extra wire between locomoitve and tender to allow for turning on curved track.
Enjoy.