first you need to see if you

first you need to see if you can take the engine apart as many of the older Rivarossi are riveted together and you need to drill all the rivets out to get the body off the frame

Then find out which side of the motor connects to which driver side and which connects to the tender side on the train and see if the motor is isolated from the grounded frame.

For DCC The motor needs to be 100% isolated electrically from everything as all the power is taken from the new added DCC Decoder and it can not touch any metal in the engine.

Most all Decoders come with a wire diagram you just need to make sure the Decoder you by is compatible with the type  engine and make sure if buying a sound equipped decoder you buy a steam Decoder for steam and a diesel sound decoder for Diesel.

There are many soundless decoders on the market that work with both steam & Diesel You will only need to make sure the one you buy is for your scale.

If in doubt as to which decoder you need take your Engine to your neighbor hood Hobby shop which has a Model railroad experienced sales person to help you. In my experience avoid Hobby Town USA as they are more of a Toy store and haven't got a clue which DCC is for what scale if they even sell Decoders. This is from visiting 11 Hobby Town USA stores in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, & Pennsylvania when I was just getting started in DCC 4 years ago and all I got from them was we don't sell DCC. The train guy quit or what's DCC.

Dan

AHM 060 RIVAROSSI 060 SWITCHER

thanks dan for your help  on this moter for this engine the 2 motor hook ups are at the top of the motor

doesent the gray wire on the decoder go to the bottom of motor and orange wire to top so how do i

know whitch one is for the top i blew 2 decoders so far trying to wire this engine luckily they were only

17$ decoders

ron netti

I think you need to remove your motor and Epoxy it

If your motor is touching the frame it will make a dead short circuit and blow your decoders.

Your motor has to be removed and you will more than likely need to but a new can motor in for your engine with a mount made of plastic to keep it from shorting to the frame of the model.

I'm still new to DCC and have only added it to 5 engines so far and no Rovarossi yet so hopefully one of the experanced DCC members can tell you what you still need to do.

Dan

AHM 060 RIVAROSSI 060 SWITCHER

thanks dan                 i have isolated the motor with electrical tape as far as i can see no part of the motor

                                   is toutching the frame like i said earlier i need to know what hookup is top or bottom

                                   ron netti

+ +

Top or bottom is just polarity or the direction the engine will go. Nothing to do with blowing decoders.  Just put a 9 V battery to the motor leads or contacts and notice which way the drive turns.  Then note which lead was positive, which is negative. 

NMRA standard is RED/right rail/positive (Black/left rail/negative)  when standing at the rear and looking forward. toward the nose.  I always go by REDRIGHT to remember.

Marc Fournier, Quebec