Considering Switch to DCC

[Steamtrains]

I believe Digitrax offers a wide selection of drop-in decoder boards, and they should be compatible with your system.

[Charlie B]

Some of the older locomotives have to have the motor brushes isolated. Some Atlas and almost all Athearns. There are good instructions here
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I use the NCE d13sr decoder(10 pack less than $140 including shipping if you shop around) for most installations, and some are very easy. Usually less than an hour including replacing the bulbs with warm white LED's This is a hard wire decoder. Hot glue is a great item for these installs. It is a good insulator. I have screw a few up, but you learn from your mistakes. Check the units on DC to see how much current they pull when stalled. You will do just fine.
Charlie

[jwb]

So OK, for my first day's work, I got it out of the box, a new gang box hooked up to connect the power to, cut a hole in the fascia for the whoosis terminal, got it all hooked up, read the manual a few times, put a DCC decoder equipped loco on the track, ran it back and forth, and turned the headlight on and off! Great! Lots more work to do, and I want to take small steps each time, but I'm pleased with the start!

Thanks for the good examples and good advice I get here!

[Charlie B]

Thats the way it starts, the next step is to change the locomotive address and the start voltage. You want the locomotive to just barely move at speed step 1.
I start with a value of 45 for start voltage, if it still doesn't move at speed step one, go higher in steps of 10, if it goes to fast go the other way in steps of 10, then fine tune when you get close.

Charlie

[torikoos]

Good choice indeed, and hope you will enjoy it. I'm sure there will be moments when you are scratching your head on how to do certain things etc, but once you're used to it, you'd wonder how you got by running DC , with all the extra features available.

good luck and happy holidays to all!

Koos

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I'd reccomend TCS decoders, since they are generally reliable, and have a "fool proof" no questions asked free replacement policy. If something goes wrong, they send you a new one. Other places charge you $10-$20 on top of shipping.

NCE is also a reliable brand of decoder as well.

Digitrax decoders can be hit or miss. I don't really have any other non-sound decoder brands.

[jwb]

I did my first troubleshooting today: I started with a pair of Atlas GP38s with the factory-installed decoder that can be switched from DC to DCC using a jumper on the PC board. I'd taken two of them to a DCC layout and had changed the jumper to DCC mode, but they never ran or were programmed on that layout. I took one out and put it on the track with my newly installed DCC system, tried a "select loco" with address 3, but nothing happened. Tried it with a long address of the loco cab number, but nothing happened. Much searching in the manual and on the web, no joy. Finally found a site that said the Atlas loco was factory set to a short address that was the same as the last two cab numbers. It worked! Also found that you had to program on the programming track to get the new long address to stick.

When I worked for a living, I discovered that reading the manual wasn't always the answer. The support people always hated me when I told them that.

[Charlie B]

JWB go here <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.broadway-limited.com/supportdocumentation.aspx">http://www.broadway-limited.com/support ... ation.aspx</a><!-- m --> and download the 4 digit address calculator. It will give you the values to input to CV17, 18, and 29 when you run into a decoder that won't accept a long address directly.

Charlie

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Charlie B has probably gotten the whole thing covered, but for anyone else, if you ever need the CVs quickly, this site gives you the CV17 and 18 values relatively quickly if you're away from your computer but still have internet access-

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[modelmaker51]

NCE, DIgitrax and TCI all have drop in non-sound decoders available. They don't fit all locos so you'l have to do some comparison shopping. Hard wiring decoders is pretty straight forward and saves on the cost of the decoders (NCE has one for $15 - I have over 25 of these), the wires are all color coded which makes it pretty easy to wire them up.