2 pick-up rollers to AC Commander Board

If each truck has its own pickup roller, you will have one wire from each truck  that goes to the center rail. Each truck may also have one wire for the outer rails.

The wires in your pictures all seem the same color. I can see how that would be confusing.

Have you got an ohmmeter? If you set it to the lowest setting, typically 200 ohms, you can test each wire to see if it goes to the pickup or the wheels.

 

It looks like some wires may have a red stripe on them. Is that so? If they do, they are probably the center pickup.

Yes RoyBoy,
The 2 of the wires have red stripes on them, so now that i know where the center rail wires go, where do the 2 black wires go?

Your pictures dont show exactly where the wires connect to on the loco. If the wires with red stripe go to the center rail then its probably safe to assume that the wires without the red stripe go to the outer rails.

In the pic of the wiring diagram, the back wire above the red wire would go to the outer rails.

Typically, you'd connect the wheel wires to the locomotive frame and to any electronics ground connection.

The wires without a stripe will connect to the truck frame. They will be the ground connection in the wiring diagram.

Just curious, can i hook them up to the two commen connectors on the AC Commander?

You will want a wire from the wheels to the 4-hole connector for motor and track.  Do not connect anything that will draw a lot of power to the commons on the other side of the Cruise Commander.  If you read the instructions, they tell you not to connect the smoke unit return through the Cruise Commander commons, so it's certainly not a good idea to route all the power through there!  That's why there are larger connectors (and PCB traces) on the power and motor connection side.

 

I like the wheels to also be connected properly to the frame as well, and that's part of my basic installation.

 

So, let me get this straight, I can either put the two black wires from the wheels on the metal frame or wire them into the power motor connector side.

You need a connection from the wheels to the power connection on the Cruise Commander.  I also want a connection from the wheels to the frame.  What I normally do is bring the two wires up and bolt them to the frame and also bolt another wire to the connection that goes to the Cruise Commander power input.

 

What you don't want to do is run these wires to the commons with the other signals, they're for low current common connections.

Thanks for the help guys!