A day of finding things out before starting a project is something I don't really do - ask Mrs. Woody! However in this case I have some old Bachmann DMUs which were manufactured in the days before DCC was seen as the way forward and everything now comes at least DCC ready. I knew there would be some complexities to adding DCC to these DMUs not least because they came with directional lighting which is nice but can add complexity to the DCC conversion process. Anyway first off to be examined was this Class 170/6 in the very smart Central Trains Livery which was so very modern when introduced over 20 years ago!
It is a three car set with the motor strangely in the centre car.
Two screws and a four clips get the body off - I do like the old style simplicity!
Interesting to se that even at that age the model has twin flywheels which made it a really good runner back when it was introduced and even today that is true. In terms of DCC chipping it, it will be fairly simple - my famous last words!
Moving onto the outer cars, they are both the same so I only dismantled one which again had two screws and four clips holding the body on.
No motor obviously but I was interested in the lighting unit at the front. Whilst it looks as though there are just two wires so there are actually four. I was originally thinking of just extending the lighting wires to the DCC chip in the centre car using mini plugs from one car to another so that I only needed one DCC chip. However looking at this proved to me that I was not going to find a five pin mini plug or that it was feasible to run five wires between the cars anyway. Therefore I am going to have to install three chips in this DMU"
Having got over the shook of having to fit three DCC chips in the Class 170/6 I took a look at a class 158 that is of a similar age to the 170. I had an inkling of what I was going to find given the comparable age to the 179.
Again the body was held on with two screws and four clips so came apart easily. I knew that the powered car would be similar to the 170 but with lights at the cab end and my suspicions that the dummy car lights were the same as the 170 proved correct to!
So that is two DCC chips needed for this and another two for the other one that I have! Seven DCC chips for three DMU's - that's going to be a strain on the WMD Stores when I get round tro doing the work! However, that might be a while after all it is me who is doing it!
