Life Like Proto 2000 GP38-2

The pictures above show the locomotive prior to the decoder installation.

Unscrew the front screw (already removed in the picture) as well as the back one that holds the coupler pocket to the chassis and remove both coupler pockets.

Grasping the shell by the solid area between the grills, lift the shell straight up and off of the chassis. The picture above illustrates the original light board with the DCC-ready plug. Lift the DCC plug up to unplug it and unscrew the two screws that hold the original light board to the chassis.

Unscrew the DCC board as shown in the picture above. You can see the pin numbers on the bottom of the board (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6). If you are using a LL8, simply plug the decoder onto this plug. If you are using the M4, follow the steps below.

Remove the black plastic coverings and de-solder all the wires that attached to the DCC socket board. Because of the fact that this locomotive uses 4 different lights (forward headlight, reverse headlight, and two number board lights) a four function decoder needed to be used. The space is very confined so we decided to use our small M4 with a short harness (M4P-SH). The voltages of the bulbs that came with the locomotive are not identified in the locomotive manual, so we replaced them with 3mm LEDs. Remember to use a 680 ohm resistor in series with every LED. Here is the pin configuration for this installation: Pin 1 (P1) - Red motor wire (thick red wire) Pin 2 (P2) - Reverse headlight Pin 3 (P3) - unused Pin 4 (P4) - Black power pick-up wire Pin 5 (P5) - Black motor wire (thick black wire) Pin 6 (P6) - Forward headlight wire Pin 7 (P7) - Common pin for lights (LED anode) Pin 8 (P8) - Red power pick-up wire Green wire (from the decoder) - Forward number board lights Purple wire (from the decoder) - Reverse number board lights. One side of the 680 Ohm voltage limiting resistors that are used for every LED should be soldered to the LED's cathode and the other side should be soldered to the proper pin/wire for that LED. The anode of each LED should be soldered to Pin 7 (Common pin for lights). For more information see the literature that comes with your M4 decoder.

A 3mm LED is too large to fit into the fixture for the front headlight, so we used a surface mount LED (as you can see in the picture above).

Make sure you place some tape under the original DCC plug (kapton tape used in this example) to make sure there is no electrical connection between the chassis and the board. Insert the M4P-3.5" so that the Orange wire of the harness is lined up with pin 1 (P1) of the DCC socket.

Here is the picture of the final installation right before the shell placement. Do not forget to reinstall both couplers that you removed in the first step.