First, thanks to the seven of you that responded to my question re digital boards yesterday. You saved me a ton of work! I decided that I want to use DCC for my new laytout. At this point, I am leaning towards Digitrax Radio Equiped Super Chief, but I don’t know how to make sure that that is the best decision. My layout will be in two connected rooms ( 23’ by 14’ and 17’ by 8’). For those of you that have done this before, is this a good choice?
Oh boy, here comes another holy war. I’m going to avoid the “mine is better” thing and simply say what I believe drives satisfaction with DCC systems and thus, your choice:
Simply put, once you move past the “starter” systems, I think all the players make great systems that will meet most needs. The systems are so good that most of the ‘fundamentals’ have reached the point of being immaterial. e.g. at the end of the day, unless you’re a really big club, do you really need to accommodate 50, 99 or 9999 throttles at once? Do technological debates about who uses which way of sending a signal through the bus matter to you - even if the differences are essentially imperceptible in ‘real world’ usage? Maybe that stuff matters to you, and if so, by all means download the system manuals, dig into those issues, and make that part of your decision. For me, all the systems had fundamental capabilities that were well beyond my needs and thus were non-factors in the decision.
So what’s left? I think it really comes down to little details that are almost entirely a subjective personal preference rather than an objective “good/bad” thing. And I think those little details typically are matters of throttle design and usage. After all, the throttle is your ‘interface’ with the system, so hadn’t you better really, really like it?
My Example: The decision for me came down to two considerations at the time I was buying.
On the one hand, Digitrax offered throttles with two simultaneous loco controls - i.e. literally two dials. I really liked that and initially was 100% sure I was buying Digitrax.
At the same time, I was very sure I wanted wireless, and as I researched it, found I strongly preferred the NCE system - where the wireless throttle will do pretty much everything because it communicates both ways (throttle to system, system to throttle). By comparison, Digitrax wireless had some limitations I didn’t like stemming from the fact that it was on
In all honesty I’ve just recently started out with an nce starter system. Due to the advice given to me on this forum, which was good advice. I eventually will move on to something better or will advance my nce system. The whole point is that at least I’m getting my feet wet before I build a big layout and expect a dcc system to do it all. Good luck on what you choose, and read carefully on the advice given to you on this forum.
The Super Chief is their top of the line, but may be a bit too much bang for your buck depending on how many locomotives and DCC acessories you plan to run. I have the Super Empire Builder and it does all I want, except it lacks read-back capability. That means you can not get a display of the decoder configuration values, and you can not use Decoder Pro to read or program your decoders as it also needs read-back to work. It does suport functions F0 to F12. Many low end command stations support F0 to F8, but advanced decoders including sound decoders use F9 to F12 for some of their functions. The Zephyr has readback, but does not support F9 to F12 functions.
Take a look at Tony’s Train Exchange for a comparison of Digitrax and DCC other starter sets
http://www.tonystrains.com/productcompare/digitrax0898.htm
http://www.tonystrains.com/productcompare/dcccomparison.htm
Also, Wiring for DCC by Allan Gartner has a wealth of information on all aspects of DCC.
i also just got my nce starter system a few days ago and it works great.im going to upgrade and stay with the nce system.terry…
My personal choice is Digitrax, it works great, NCE also works great, Lens also works great. Like the others said it is all about which one you find easiest to use and what others use in your area. I think you want something more advanced than the Bachmann and Atlas systems, and you want to stay away from MRC becuase they are very finicky and unreliable. Anything else will serve you well.
I did the Super Chief and my only regret is that I did not do radio at the start. Once I wrote the check, all the negatives disappeared. I now have 4 throttles, and its fun to see a group, each running their own train with their own throttle and mixing in a few DC engines that I have not yet converted.
The other systems are probably great, but the Super Chief radio sure suits me.
Lenz invented DCC and is still the best
All others are junk trying to backwards engineer what Lenz leads with.
So since mercedes-benz invented the automobile all other cars are total junk just trying to backwards engineer that?
Where DCC stands today is the result of no one manufacturer. Different companies continually make improvements, if they catch on they are adopted into the standards and incorporated into all systems. Besides, there is no need for backwards engineering since the standards are available to anybody who wants to make DCC products.
I agree that Digitrax and NCE are good systems; however, I do not agree with your comments on MRC systems. The complaints that I see are with the MRC decoders not the DCC systems. When I compared systems and made my personal choice; I ended up with the Prodigy Advance and I am very happy with my decision. The PA comes with a nice handheld throttle and all of the function keys needed to control some of the advanced decoder requirements. I gave up a computer interface (which I really wanted) with the Digitrax because of the nice operation of the PA handheld throttle and a “full” compliment of function keys. As best I can tell; all of the systems work well, choose the features that you need and want.
I went with Digitrax because it is what I needed for my layout. The best way to find a DCC system is find one that fits your needs.
Victor
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
I have the same system but for a smaller 11’x13’ layout. No regrets whatsoever. let me know if you have any questions.
I’m glad yours is working well, this is just my personal experience, we used a PA at the modules for a while until we replaced it with EasyDCC. I think most of the problems come when you start using multiple throttles, we had 3 throttles and it seemed to confuse the system. We had problems like all the horns/whistles/bells/etc. coming on on all the sound-equipped locos at once with no way to stop them without resetting the system. There were also runaway problems, a loss of control, so we traded up.