# Converting "older" Rivarossi steam to DCC??



## breezy8 (Jun 21, 2012)

Has anyone had any luck converting the older Rivarossi steam engines to DCC? This week end, my local club, the Lewis Clark Model Train Club of Lewiston, ID. was "gifted" a Rivarossi 4-8-8-4 big boy, a 4-6-2 hvy pacific, and a Bachman 4-8-4 "daylight" w/ complete "daylight" pass. car set circa 1930. And a MILW pass. car sets (A & B) circa 1930 by Rivarossi. All of these are the 1995 era models, new in the box, never run. We would like to covert to DCC if Poss. Any help would be appreciated...BREEZY8


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

I have converted a Rivarossi Cab Forward to DCC + Sound. This is basically the same drive train as the Big Boy running in reverse. First check what motor you have in it. If it has the square one in the cab it will probably draw to many amps and require a motor replacement. If it is the round one in the cab double check the amp draw while running and at stall to make sure it is not too high for the decoder you have. Next open the boiler, these split in half. You will need to remove the motor next. There is a metal piece that connects the one of the brushes to the can of the motor. Cutting this piece and removing it will isolate the brushes from the frame. I then added a 9 pin harness to the locomotive so that if I ever needed to swap out the decoder it was a simple task. The decoder that I used was an NCE RJ series for motor control. For sound I used an MRC Sounder series decoder and a separate sugar cube speaker. This all fit in the boiler. The speaker was placed under the stacks so that no holes were needed for the sound to escape.

The most difficult part was not the conversion but the task of disassembling and reassembling the locomotive. In this case nothing needed to go into the tender.

I have done a GG1 and an E unit that had the same round can type moter. All of them had the same bar to be cut. Not that the can of the motor will still not be isolated from the frame, this only isolates the brushes. The way I soldered the wires to the brushes they cannot contact the can of the motor, for this reason I am not worried about it.


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## johnfl68 (Feb 1, 2015)

People do DCC conversions often.

Here is a link with some info in regards to the Rivarossi 4-8-8-4 for example:

http://www.wiringfordcc.com/hrbigboy.htm

Steam can be challenging to convert, often the decoders (and speakers if adding sound decoders) are put in the tenders because of space.

If you are daunted with the task of converting steam to DCC, it may be best to try and find someone in your area that has done a few already, or consider sending to a professional installer who does them all the time. Professional services are around $50-$100 plus decoder and parts depending on what is involved, perhaps a bit more for steam.


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