DC vs DCC locomotive performance

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

I’m new to the hobby in general and am currently in the process of converting from straight DC ops to DCC. So far, everything has been pretty smooth, but I have encountered one issue that I can not resolve.

I have been running an IHC Command XX locomotive that, although light on detail, is one of thequietest and smoothest running locos, with some of the best slow speed performance that I have ever had–while running DC. I plugged in an NCE 141p, the same series of decoder thatI have been using on other makes of locos, and despite adjusting every relative CV value including starting voltage, torque, kick,etc., I can not achieve anything close to the same slow speed performance I can with DC. I had always thought the ability to fine tune CV values with DCC would only enhance, well, at least not degrade locomotive performance. Hopefully, some of you with a lot more experience might have a suggestion. Trial and error is only fun for a while.

TC

2

In case you don’t see it, I answered you in your similar post in the General Discussion forum. My suspicion is that your decoder does not deal with BEMF, so it cannot control the motor to slow speeds near 1-2 scale mph.

3

Every good decoder that I have has throttle response curve tables. There’s one for mainline locos that you to flat get up and scat like a scalded ape, one for road switchers that’s about half that speed and one for switchers that’s you almost have to put a mark down to see if it’s movings sometimes. Look in the documentation for your decoder, it has to be there.

4

TC

Make sure the decoder is set to 28 speed steps in CV29. Once set to 28 speed steps then set start voltage and the other CVs to get it running smoothly at slow speeds. If your command station supports 128 speed steps try running it under that.

Pete