I know its very unfashionable, but how would you go about converting say an Athearn Big Boy to straight DC getting rid of the sound etc and thus, I would assume, improving the kangaroo start problem?
I’m no expert in the matter… but I would assume that it’s as simple as cutting the leads from the decoder, then attaching the pickup leads (from the wheels) to the motor, then attaching the headlight leads to the power pickup leads - of course, you’d probably need to add a directional lighting circuit, a capacitor, and (maybe) a resistor between the light and the power, so that you can have directional lighting that doesn’t flicker (and the resistor so that you don’t blow out the LED)…
Removing the decoder will NOT improve the starting situation as the decoder provides PWM power to the motor for smoother starts - even when powered by DC.
The decoder needs several volts to wake up, then a little bit of time - just like your PC, before it is ready to go. It prefers straight pure filtered DC or DCC - pulse power is not a good idea. For smoothest response, leave a few volts on the track, so that the decoder is not shutting down and restarting all the time.
A friend of mine did that…He removed the decoder/Soundboard and hard wired the drive…It runs smooth and slow.
Although not as inexpensive as entirely removing the old decoder, you could always replace the MRC decoder with a better quality “dual”-decoder with BEMF. Then you’d have the option of running it on either DC or DCC. The BEMF (or back EMF) would give you smoother starts and operation.
Tom