i have seen some bachmann locos and was wondering if the dcc was good or not worth the money… thinking of buying the dcc locos and selling the locos cheap… thanks peter
HI Neighbour!!!
Bachmann Spectrum loco’s are middle of the range quality. I wouldn’t recommend the ordinary Bachmann range.
They may be DCC ready which means you can usually plug a decoder in and it’s a runner.
Some may have a decoder already and should run fine. All decoders ( if they have NMRA approval) will run on any DCC system.
Ken.
There are some Bachman Diesels that already have a decoder that are selling in the $25 range. These are not the Spectrum.
Like anything else in life, You get what you pay for.
Anybody can sell anything on price!
Quality costs a little more…
And with botchman, you’re not getting quality!!!
I wouldn’t waste money on ANYTHING from botchman!!!
Save it and buy something with a little quality…
gtr
Maybe that’s all some people can afford.
I haven’t paid over $50 for a loco YET (although that will change when the PCM Reading T-1 comes out), and I have P2K, Stewart, and Atlas/Kato.
Careful shopping on eBay has its advantages. Finding a $30 P2K GP-7 at the Timonium train show helped too.
My father-in-law has several Spectrums and I have nt been impressed. Both GP30’s have paint problems at the same spot on the cabs - one has already chipped off and it’s only ever been out of the box once! The E33 electric that I put a decoder in sure was packed in a nice box, but the bottom was all full of grease from over lubrication, the headlight is absolutely horrible, and the running qualities are none too good, even after cleaning out the excess lube and putting in the proper amount.
I don’t want to turn this into a Bachmann-ba***hread, but if this is the supposedly ‘better’ stuff…sheesh. Although the PRR passenger cars my father-in-law has are pretty decent.
–Randy
The $25 DCC installed Bachmann locos are alright. They run decent but are a little loud. Not really all that bad. The details are typical Bachmann but what do you want for $25 with decoder installed. They are not of the Spectrum quality but if you want a basic loco with dcc they are fine. Now they do not have all the fancy functions. You can turn lights on and off and control them within a limited range. If I remember correctly they use a basic lenz decoder… If you have a fine detailed layout they may look toyish. I have had bad Bachmann products before but this is NOT the case with these units. They are a bargain at $25.
RMax1
so far I’ve had really good experiences with these new 25$ bachmanns atm I only run them on DC they’re DCC equipped but I’m still looking at DCC systems( I can never make up my mind). I like them because they’re cheap, simple and I can super detail them if I really wanted to. like someone above said, ebay is a great place to get trains, I just won an auction for a P2k S-1 switcher for 28$ also trainworld has sales from time to time that you can get some sweet gear for a great price.
The Proto 2000 S1 is a sweet diesel. [:)] jadormdrache is correct about Trainworld.com. You can get the aforementioned P2K S1 from them for a litlle more than what jadormdrache paid for his on auction - $29.99. (A few are $39.99) I takes a little work to get it ready for installing a decoder into it. But you won’t find a better running and better looking switcher for the price. [:D]
Tom
in reply to all of the above… i asked the question about the dcc because i am interested in getting my hands on an inexpensive dcc system… i do not run bachmann… i have kato , lifelike etc and i would buy the bachmann locos and take out the dcc then offload the locos on ebay over here… these dcc units may be usefull for things like running point motors or a lifting bridge etc…thanks peter
Bachmann’s DCC isn’t the best out there, but it’s probably enough to get a good start with DCC. Now the new Bachmann diesels have been very good recently. The newest of their inexpensive diesels has a smooth, quiet and powerful Spectrum motor and 8 wheel drive. My new Bachmann F40PH runs every bit as good as a Kato. (the F40s are Spectrums, but I beleive they have the same drive as the cheaper engines)
Model Railroader did a review on the DCC sets in the December 2004 issue.
Those DCC decoders may be a factory circuit board hardwired in, but sounds like a good plan.
Ken.
i have one of the Bachman DCC GP40-2s. it works pretty good. its to fast or to slow to run with nay of my other power. but it makes a decent engine for switching.
I don’t know about the new Bachmann’s but I got a couple of Atlas locomotives with the factory-installed Lenz decoders in them, and the decoders aren’t really all that great. They run, but the motors are very noisy under DCC (though the locos themselves are great).
If you already have some high-quality locos and just want decoders I think you’d be better off just getting decoders. If your locos have DCC plugs then installing them is really easy. I’ve had good luck with Digitrax, Lenz Gold, and TCS so far.
I think he wants an experiment so he makes sure he doesn’t really mess up one of his more expensive trains, in which case go with bachmann. decoders are getting cheaper tho the really cheap ones are under 20$.