hello everyone, i am new to dcc, have had a dc layout approximately 10 years. I purchased a Prodigy express and three MRC AD350 decoders. one was installed into an athearn unit with dcc 8-pin plug, i removed the dc jumper, put loco on program track, programed engine road number to decoder, no reaction from loco. Put second decoder into Atlas unit with 8-pin plug again tried to assign loco road number to engine, no reaction. Installed third decoder, left addres as default #3, loco and lights work. Placed a Bachmann dcc equipped unit on program track, programmed its road number, works like a charm. Did I do something wrong? Are 1st two decoders gondola scrap loads now? Information aheet included with decoders says they support 4 digit adresses, but now i can not do anything with them. As for the Athearn loco, should I get a decoder that plugs into the dc jumper plug(i.e. DigitraxDH123AT), and forget about the 8-pin plug? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
I have heard that these MRC decoders will not accept a long address, so you might try assigning an address of 99 or less before changing decoders. On the other hand, 4 out of 5 MRC decoders I bought were defective and wound up in the trash. I’ll never touch another one.
9 out of 11 here along with a Rev unit and the sound unit out of my Genesis. MRC makes good DC stuff but they may have missed on the DCC to many "C"s I guess.
Try Digitrax and NCE they are ALMOST fool proof.
Others will disagree with this but if they do pick there brain on how they made there’s work.
Take Care
George P.
“NO DCC expert but learning”
I would like to suggest that you also look at TCS www.tcsdcc.com they make an excellent line of decoders and have a lot of installtion examples on their web site, The goof proof warranty is hard to resist as well. I knew nothing of TCS until I found them at the NMRA national train show last year and have been very impressed.
thank you for the responses, also a big thank you to simon1966 for the link to tcs. Just checked out their website and they sound as if they cannot be beat as far as simplicity of technology. Again thank you to cacole and claycts for your input, i thought that since i had the mrc system i should go with mrc decoders, guess i was wrong.
I myself am a big MRC fan. Really been pleased with the Prodigy Advanced system and I had the oroginal Prodigy sytem before that. But, they did seem to miss the mark on their decoders. Not happy with either the power or sound decoders they market. The AD350 is a poor performer and does not accept 4 digit addresses.
Alot of my decoders are from TCS. Very easy to program and use. All of my old blue box Athearns have the T-1 decoder installed. the Price is low compared to some others but the quality is high. As you will notice, TCS offers a no questions asked replacement policy on there decoders for 1 year.
crfan,
I know MRC decoders have gotten a fair amount of bad press but I’ve not experienced all that bad luck with them. I’ve got 350’s and do use 4 digit addresses. I have had them go bad, but then I’ve had atlas and digitrax go bad too. If the unit didn’t work at all, twice, I’m woundering if maybe the eight pin plug was backwards? Just a thought as most of my older Athearns are direct wired.
The TCS site is interesting. Who doesn’t like not having to change bulbs or wire in resistors?
question for pennsy58, you said you have mrc prodigy advance, i have prodigy express, just received ti decoders frm tcs, tried to program two digit address, loco will only lurch forward when number is sent . but if use factory default of #3 loco runs fine. i even tried changing cv1 on the decoder to the two digit address-which are the first two digits of the loco road number. have you had any problems with assigning addresses?
Sorry for delay, dont always get a chance to check in. Sorry to hear your first experiences have gone poorly.
No, never had any address issues with the T-1 on my PA. Nor the regular prodigy I had before. I have a few engines with two digit addresses also. If the loco still runs at the #3 address, then the address change was not accepted it would seem.
Not sure what all you have done so I may include more than needed for things to try.
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Make sure the decoder is not locked. CV15=0 unlocks the decoder.
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Try re-setting the decoder all together. CV30=0 then turn off the system power, wait a few seconds the power back on. Of course the address will be 3 now.
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If you are programming on a programming track, make sure this track is completely isolated from the main track. I had trouble once when I didn’t realize my track gap was not open enough.
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Try programming the address on the main. If it accepts the new address then I would suspect a problem with the program track wiring. This again is based on my own trial and error experiences.
As a potential question, no you do not need a special booster to program any TCS decoder on the programming track.
One other thing I thought of after previous posting. When entering a two digit address say #40. Do not enter it as 0040. Just enter 40 and press enter.