Minitrix Class 47 DCC Conversion

Mistakes may damage your locomotive, controller or other accessories. Use a multimeter to make absolutely sure you have completely isolated the motor from the track before testing. Always use the Programming Track for testing. Our guides are provided for reference only, and you proceed entirely at your own risk. Unsure about something - try our DCC Conversion Service instead.

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This guide covers all Minitrix Class 47 models, including:

• N210 Class 47 47170 'County of Norfolk' (British Rail Blue, Large Logo)
• N219 Class 47 47541 'The Queen Mother' (British Rail Blue)
• N12024 Class 47 47378 (Railfreight Grey)
• N12025 Class 47 47487 (Intercity Mainline)

Step 1 - Remove Body

Remove the body by gently pulling upwards. Take care not to use the fuel tank as the clips holding it on can easily break off. The bulbs at either end will usually fall out - keep them safe.

Step 2 - Prepare PCB

Desolder the wire coming up from the lower PCB, it is usually red but has also been known to be green sometimes. Undo the two screws holding the PCB in place, and lift upwards to remove it. Desolder all components from the PCB, except the copper tabs at either end that touch the bulbs and the one down the side that touches one side of the motor.

Step 3 - Isolate Motor

Remove the metal weights at either side by pulling directly upwards. Remove the two black clips. Insert a small screwdriver in the sqare holes to release the plastic clips that hold the drive shafts in. Once released, the motor and drive shafts should come out horizontally.

Solder a grey wire to the tab on the opposite side of the motor, and put head shrink tubing around the entire tab to prevent it from making electrical contact with the chassis.

Reverse the steps above to re-fit the motor and drive shafts. It will be a tight fit now where the insulated tubing has added a few fractions of a millimetre to the tab width.

Step 4 - Refit PCB

Pop the bulbs back in if they fell out, and refit the PCB. Remember to feed the wire from the bottom PCB up through the hole before you screw the main PCB down, as it's a pain to do afterwards. Resolder the bottom PCB wire to where it came from originally.

Step 5 - Solder decoder wires to PCB

• Solder a white wire to the pad in the top left corner. This will power one of the directional lights.
• Solder a yellow wire to the pad in the top right corner for the other light.
• Solder a red wire to the same pad as the wire coming up through the PCB from below. This is one of the track power feeds.
• Solder an orange wire to the pad that has the motor contact on the underside. This will be one of the motor feeds. If you prefer, you can also remove the motor tab and just solder the orange wire directly to the motor.
• Solder a black wire to the pad at the bottom right-hand side. This will be the other track power feed.

At this point you should have six wires, including the grey one you soldered to one side of the motor earlier. You should be able to confirm with a multimeter that the track pickup wires and the motor feed wires are isolated from each other. If you apply a 9V battery to the grey and orange wire, the motor should run.

Step 6 - Fit the decoder

There is plenty of room for a small decoder towards the right hand side. However, using a sticky pad to secure it will most likely mean the body won't quite fit back on snugly. In this case, use thin isolating tape between the PCB and the decoder, and another piece over the decoder itself and/or the wires to stop it from moving around.

Step 7 - Test

Place the loco on your programming track and attempt to read the decoder ID. After some shuffling, you should get the default ID 3 back. Test that the directional lights work. If they do not follow the direction of travel, you can either set CV values to swap them round, swap the motor feed wires over, or swap the white/yellow wires over.

Step 8 - Refit Body

Refit the body and you're done!

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