Until tonight all my DCC conversions have been done with DCC ready locos or units.

I wanted to keep my Lima class 92 92022 Charles Dickens, bought virtually as new, as part of my fleet, as I'm underrepresented in that department, but the options otherwise for DCC were limited without spending loads more cash.

I considered chipping my Lima 67 as my first hardwiring project, but the 92 was easier because of the pancake motor's plastic construction, and I only had to take account of the motor and not worry about lighting functions.

By and large it went well, except on the first attempt the Bachmann 36-553 chip blew, and I realised I should had removed the suppressor between the motor's brushes.

Once I removed the suppressor, things worked OK with a spare 36-553 chip when I programmed and ran the loco on address 3. It ran better on DCC compared with DC, even on their factory default settings including CV 49 bit 1 for BEMF.

I prefer to buy stuff DCC ready, but if that's not feasible, buy good quality serviced locos to hardwire for DCC, certainly a decoder won't always solve pre-existing problems.