Please could one of the DCC experts out there give me some help?
I rather rashley purchased two Massoth Electric Uncouplers (Item No 8442010) thinking they would be two-wire and easily installed and connected to one of the function outputs of a DCC loco decoder (in my case a Zimo MX645). The mechanical installation is not straight forward but that is another story. It's the electrical connections I would like help with, please.
The Massoth printed instructions provided with items state (page 11):
• 1. Black: DEC+ (Decoder +)
• 2. Black: DEC- (Decoder -)
• Brown: amplified function output of the decoder (Open collector, with at least 50mA load capacity at DEC-)
I'm happy with the brown wire connecting to a function output from the decoder (say the brown wire on the Zimo) but where do the other two black wires on the couplers connect to? I believe that they must NOT be connected to left and right rail if I want to use the loco's decoder function wire. So what precisely does "DEC+ (Decoder +)" and "DEC- (Decoder -)" mean? Do I use the "common positive" on the Zimo which is the blue wire and then the "ground" which is the black wire but is already connected to the ground on the stay-alive capacitors? This doesn't seem to make sense as I would have thought that connecting the decoder "ground" and the function wire (negative) in parallel would not be logical.
I'm very reluctant to suck-it-and-see as I could easily write off expensive bits of kit!
Any advice would be gratefully received. I'm probably missing something really obvious.
I rather rashley purchased two Massoth Electric Uncouplers (Item No 8442010) thinking they would be two-wire and easily installed and connected to one of the function outputs of a DCC loco decoder (in my case a Zimo MX645). The mechanical installation is not straight forward but that is another story. It's the electrical connections I would like help with, please.
The Massoth printed instructions provided with items state (page 11):
• 1. Black: DEC+ (Decoder +)
• 2. Black: DEC- (Decoder -)
• Brown: amplified function output of the decoder (Open collector, with at least 50mA load capacity at DEC-)
I'm happy with the brown wire connecting to a function output from the decoder (say the brown wire on the Zimo) but where do the other two black wires on the couplers connect to? I believe that they must NOT be connected to left and right rail if I want to use the loco's decoder function wire. So what precisely does "DEC+ (Decoder +)" and "DEC- (Decoder -)" mean? Do I use the "common positive" on the Zimo which is the blue wire and then the "ground" which is the black wire but is already connected to the ground on the stay-alive capacitors? This doesn't seem to make sense as I would have thought that connecting the decoder "ground" and the function wire (negative) in parallel would not be logical.
I'm very reluctant to suck-it-and-see as I could easily write off expensive bits of kit!
Any advice would be gratefully received. I'm probably missing something really obvious.