Milling frames for N-Scale DCC

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Agatheron

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Well, I bought a Prodigy Express unit today, but have yet to buy the decoder upgrades for my locomotives. For four of my Locos, it will be a simple board replacement: Kato SD-40-2, C44-9W, P42DC, and SD70Mac... I'll begin acquiring those shortly.

However, for three of my Locomotives, which are Life Like Canada GP9 "Chop Noses" the decoder installation is a bit more involved. Since these units will be the switching backbone of my layout, I definitely want these locos to be DCC equipped. I understand from one source that the frames will need milling in order to receive a wired decoder... both Lenz and Digitrax Z-Scale decoders are certainly small enough.

Has anyone done this type of installation before? I have a Dremel unit and a hacksaw, but wondering what sort of bits I would need and precautions I would need to take in order to properly install the decoders on each of these little gems.
 
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Agatheron

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I followed the link, but it seems to be for an HO model rather than the N-scale version. The reason being is that the decoder the person was using isn't small enough to fit inside an N-Scale frame.

I think I would have a better idea of what I was up against if I actually opened up the frame of one of my GP9rms... I'm curious as to how tight a fit the frame is against the decoder...
 
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Agatheron

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I think I may pop one of these units open when I upgrade the couplers next. I've upgraded couplers on one of them already, but wasn't brave enough to try opening the shell to see what was on the inside. I may find that there's enough room for either a Lenz or a Digitrax mini decoder...

My question is, how can I tell once I have the shell off?
 
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