Hi,
Last weekend I bought an Athern “Blue box” Amtrak P42 loco for about $40. I’d like to convert it to DCC and possibly sound. What you be a good decoder to buy and install?
Thanks,
Jim
For this loco, a QSI Revolution-A will work great with a High Bass speaker/Baffle.
David B
How about Digitrax decoders? Someone mentions a model 165 or 163 decoder?
Thanks,
Jim S.
If you want sound, I suggest the QSI-U.
If you dont want sound, then look at the DH123D or DH165D. I dont suggest the soundbug by Digitrax for the 165 series because the sound is dissapointing at best.
David B
I am going to agree with David on the Digitrax. I heard one the other day and it didn’t sound too good.
I have Loksounds installed in my P42s. These have the P42 sound scheme loaded into them including the unique sound of the compressor.
Only a few people have managed to get anything close to the full potential out of the Soundbug, unfortunately. If you check the Digitrax Sound Yahoo Group you will find those people. The problem is, it is extremely difficult to achieve what they have done, far beyond just getting good source sounds and making smooth cuts. With other user-programmable decoders (Loksound), you have o learn how to do good sound edits. With the Digitrax sound decoders, you need to be a sound editor AND a microcontroller programmer. I don;t know why they even bothered makign sound decoders, other than to prove they could (or rather, for AJ to prove he could), and to have the option of offering the whole system, from controller to decoder, sound as well as non-sound. Support for the sound decoders is minimal at best, although there is a new aprt-time guy who is focused on developing better sound projects - personally I think they should hire Fred Miller, his Peter Witt trolley is one of the examples of how much more the decoder can do than the projects available to download on the Digitrax site.
I wouldn;t trade my Digitrax system for anything, Loconet blows all the others away. But the only Digitrax decoder I own is a Soundbug I got to play with. I find the motor decoders generally overpriced compared to NCE and TCS, and the TCS ones have a far superior BEMF. For non-BEMF you can’t beat NCE’s D13 series. And the D13SR/SRJ costs LESS than the cheapy decoders from Bachmann and MRC (yes, MRC has motor-only decoders).
–Randy
I was reading another thread about someone needing to add DCC to an older Athern Blue box loco. I saw something about a clip-on DCC harness from Digitrax. Is it still made and what part number is it? I want to KISS the hold process of adding DCC. I’ll skip the sound for now.
Thanks, Jim
It is not just a ‘clip on’…an install into an Athearn BB loco requires you remove the motor to isolate it from the frame.
David B
This is about as KISS as it gets, but David is right, it still takes a little work to isolate the motor from the frame. The first link is a link to what you’re looking for. The second link is a great article to help tune up your Athearn loco.
http://www.litchfieldstation.com/xcart/product.php?productid=2450028&cat=0&page=7
http://www.mcor-nmra.org/Publications/Articles/Athearn_TuneUp.html
Good luck. BTW, that harness is only good for the Digitrax decoders, DH123D and DH165D I think it is.
The Digitrax Athearn harness works with ANY decoder with a 9 pin JST socket - like a TCS T1 or an NCE D13SRJ.
–Randy
ABSOLUTELY TRUE