# ROCO digital upgrade experience



## [email protected] (Jun 9, 2016)

Hi. Having converted my HAG and Marklin Delta locos to loksoundV4 I want to tackle my mid 90's ROCO RE460 locos.

They are all 2 rail DC (my prev life) and I can take care of adding centre rail pickup but I would like to ask if anyone on the forum has specific experience with ROCO and found any unusual/different challenges doing ROCO.

Looking at these locos they all have what I assume are 'CAN' motors and fly wheels. Are these 5 pole?

A couple have 8 pin decoder sockets so they are OK and I just need to convert to middle rail slider but the others are the real centre of focus here with no dcc wiring built in.

I am assuming I just strip all the wiring back, disconnect any contact between motor terminals and frame etc. and go from there - but if there are any hidden tricks to ROCO you have discovered I would appreciate your experience thanks. Looking inside briefly I can't see any light bulbs to assume they are hidden underneath somewhere.

Rgds

Greg


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## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

Hello Gregory and welcome to the forum. I assume we're talking European Roco here. 

I have US outline model (no DCC plug)model which predates yours but may be similar. As you might know you need to isolate the motor completely from the frame. Mine has a motor which carries the + through the motor frame and it is secured by a screw underneath from the bottom of the metal chassis. You can replace the screw with a non metallic one ( Kadee have a delrin one) or simply hold it in place with silicon. You then solder the motor leads to the brass caps that hold the brushes. 

Apart from that everything else is straightforward. Decoder red is right side wheel pick up and black is left. You may want to change the bulbs to LEDs at the same time, remember to use a resistor.


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## [email protected] (Jun 9, 2016)

*ROCO conversion*

Excellent thanks. The metal screw tip is very useful and the sort of thing thats easily missed 

Rgds

Greg


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## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

You should be ok if you proceed carefully. If you haven't already got some buy Kapton tape, useful for insulating things and holding wires in place. A multimeter might be useful too to checking insulation.


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