American system

[doilum]

As an analogue dinosaur contemplating converting one or two of my older builds to DCC, is there any fundamental reason why the American system of current collection may cause issues?

My take on this system is to have the locomotive and tender chassis electrically isolated from the superstructure.

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, doilum said:

As an analogue dinosaur contemplating converting one or two of my older builds to DCC, is there any fundamental reason why the American system of current collection may cause issues?

My take on this system is to have the locomotive and tender chassis electrically isolated from the superstructure.

The only absolute requirement of DCC is that the motor brushes be isolated from any electrical source other than the orange and grey leads of the decoder. How the pickups are arranged, as long as left and right are separated as with DC, matters not, but they must only feed to the red and black leads of the decoder. Of course, if you have a live chassis, this can be awkward if it meets another live chassis via metal couplers. 

[doilum]

Thanks. The drawbar, buffers and couplings are all part of the superstructure all isolated from the two live chassis.