OK, so it just clicked with me that the BLI CZ cars I have on order might not run right on DCC. I looked over the BLI website and they say nothing of being DC/DCC compatible. It does say that the cars are lit with LED’s.
So my question is, what are the possible problems going to be with these cars on a DCC layout and what fixes are there?
I have not emailed BLI this question yet, but that is next on my list.
Thanks guys.
I would think there would be no problems. I have some old Spectrum passenger cars that have been with me since 1990. They work the same on DC as on DCC. The locomotive pulls them and the interior lighting gets it’s power from the track. DCC has constant voltage on the rails so they no longer vary in brightness with track speed.
Good luck,
Ed
Wes,
I wondered the same thing about all the Walthers cars that I have lighting kits installed in. I recently converted to DCC and found that there is a high pitched sound coming from the circuitry of the lighting board. There are 2 capacitors on the board and as far as I know, capacitors are used for the DC stabilization of the lights.
I think Walthers mentions two different light kits for DC or DCC and I have about 20 of the DC ones. I wonder what I have to do to them to make them DCC compatible.
I’m not sure what the BLI situation would be.
Ed
To gmpullman,
That high pitch whining is a capacitor getting ready to go out. Some will whine for a long time, and others do not. Too high voltage or amperage, or a faulty capacitor are the culprits. My father and sister are EE’s. I had a computer monitor that started whining, then when it quit whining, it smoked and died. A $3 capacitor from Radio Shack and some soldering iron work fixed it right up.
The only thing you might want to watch out for is overheating - in my experience bulbs won’t blow at the slightly higher DCC voltage but they will get very hot - had to add a couple of resistors to the interior and headlight of my Spectrum Doodlebug to avoid a melted bodyshell. At a guess, the BLI cars will be DCC compatible without having to chop anything about. I have one of the Walthers PS sleepers with their own lighting kit and it seems fine on DCC - there is a very high-pitched whine but it doesn’t seem to be doing any harm. If I buy any of the new heavyweight cars (and add lighting) I’ll go for the DCC kits but that’s mainly due to their being slightly cheaper!
Thanks guys. While I was on BLI site to ask them these questions I noticed they have updated the shipping schedule…and its not good for those of us waiting! [:(}
CZ cars are out until October! AT&SF 2-10-2’s are out till August! Crappy!!! I was almost getting excited!
Remember that each of those little light bulbs draws current, too. Check out the May issue of MR. On page 96 there’s an article called DCC Controlled passenger car lighting.
As far as passenger car lights are concerned, it makes no difference whether you’re using DC block control or DCC. If the car has LEDs for lights, there will be a diode circuit in it to keep the polarity to the LEDs correct regardless of track polarity. The most significant difference is that on DCC your lights will burn at full intensity all the time, even when no locomotives are running. This has a very slight potential of causing an incandescent bulb to overheat and burn out, but should never be a problem with LEDs.
FYI:
I just got an email from BLI confirming that the CZ cars will operate on DC/DCC just fine.