I have a new DCC ready E7 loco. I would like to install a Digitrax DH166 to be able to control the various light functions -- headlight, Mars light, and numberboards -- separately. Testing it on DC, I see that the default is for all LEDs to be lit. It looks like I will need to identify the wires going to the LEDs, cut them, and splice them into the corresonding wires coming out of the DH166. However, the wires on the loco are colored blue, green, and yellow, and I'm not sure how they correspond to the white, violet, and green wires coming out of the DH166. Has anyone worked this out? I can experiment, cut the wires on the loco, and see what happens, but if someone already has this figured out, I'd like to learn it.  Thanks!

I've worked with several of the newer HO locos with DCC on board (not sound value), which don't have an 8-pin socket but have the decoder mounted on a motherboard. These apparently include newer GP9s and GP40s.

I find that these seem to have some sort of acceleration variable built in , but they don't seem to allow for programming more than a few CVs. The accel-decel variables in particular don't seem to be reprogrammable. So far, the only solution I've found has been to remove the motherboard and replace it with a hardwired decoder from another manufacturer.

A contributing factor is that the new motherboards don't seem to be well documented, or documented at all, unless I'm missing something. Can someone clarify what CVs are programmable on this board?

I see Bachmann ES44s listed at a major online retailer as "GE ES44AC With Ditch Lights", typical number 65407. Is this a change, and do these now have working ditch lights?

In the thread on Sound Value FA2s, it was suggested that I start a thread on speed matching Sound Value HO locos with other makes on DCC. In particular, I think these are potentially good mates for Atlas/Kato or Classic GP7s and RS-3s with DCC decoders installed, but out of the box, they don't match well in speed. The recent Sound Value locos are especially comparable in detail to the older Atlas yellowbox locos -- the GP7s in particular seem to have been retired from the Atlas line, so the Sound Value GP7s fill an important gap here.

Has anyone had experience with this?

I notice that Bachmann has been upgrading paint, chassis, and DCC options on its HO GP40, 50, 30, and 35. However, exactly which loco has a one-piece frame and which has an 8 pin plug on the DCC board is very difficult to determine. The latest version of the GP30, for instance, is not described in standard product descriptions as DCC ready, although it has an 8 pin socket.

In an earlier post, someone noted that although the GP40 is described as DCC ready, it does not have an 8 pin socket.

Would it be possible to make it clearer which locos have which features? Among other things, it would affect what type of decoder -- hard wire or 8 pin plug -- I would order when I order a particular loco.

Bachmann has been making very worthwhile improvements to its product line, but in some ways it isn't making these improvements as well known as it could.

I have a new 62308 EMD GP30. I'm very happy with the paint, the one-piece frame, and the AAR Type B trucks on the GM&O prototype. However, when I install a TCS DP2X decoder in the 8-pin plug on the stock PC board, the front and rear LEDs go on with track power, and F0 won't turn them off. By the same token, there is no change in headlight with change in direction. I checked the CVs in the DP2X, and they are set to the default, headlight on bright forward, off reverse, and the other way around in reverse.

It looks like the 8-pin is not wired to control the white and yellow wire functions at all, although motor control does work. Is this the case, or is there anything that can be done to change this to get headlight control?