That’s fine, but as I stated, around here, most everyone who wants DCC has already converted.</
Lets face it, things change and some things are game changers. Who do you still know with a landline, I know of very few, gave up mine years ago as have all my tenants. Landlines are drying to the point that the phone company now keeps converted numbers in the phone book, even if they have gone elsewhere with their number. Pay phones, if I think real hard I may be able to think of a location, yes I know of one and no, I do not live in the boonies. If there were a cheap way to convert to something other than DC, I would change in a heartbeat!!! The new radio receivers are supposed to sell for around $30 (without sound). Somebody will win the new technology battle, whether it is Crest, who knows but DCC would not exist if it were not for early adopters that led to further research.
Also, you can run the crest system at the same time as any DCC system and on the same track. If you are really good, you could MU with with a DCC engine but you would both have to control your own engine (would make an interesting helper situation.
Motors are improving all the time - look at the latest Kao offering with truck-mounted motors in HO! Leaves a lot of space up in the body for fitting batteries and recievers and what-not. Extremely low current draw, too. Nothing really new - the Canon motor in my Bowser/Stewart Baldwin switchers draws about 25ma when running.
–Randy
I am a dummy! I just found out that the radio control setup I go last year on e-bay has an 8 pin socket, boy do I feel dumb. Guess I need to try it out now!
Most all of my locomotives are DCC ready and some has to have a decoder but I still run DC Sheldon the Train Engineer I was going to get but change my mind because I did not want to de decoder them now if MRC will ever make a wireless DC that I will buy.
Wait, you don’t want to use the Crest system, tried and proven for many years now, but would jump on an MRC system? Note, MRC has not been making much of any true quality anymore. Their DCC stuff is pretty much junk.
As reliable as their old DC power packs were, have you ever taken one apart and looked inside? Looks like it was a junior high electronics project, very no-neat assembly techniques. In the pre-electronics days it didn;t matter much, how could you really mess up a transfomer, rheostat, and big selenium plate rectifier? What’s more amazing is how reliable their later soldi state stuff like the Tech II series are despite the rather shoddy build quality.
Simple stuff they seem to have down pretty well. I wouldn;t trust them on a direct radio control system which would be at least as complex as DCC internally. They also don;t seem to learn, so they might initially offer a system with 5 channels, but it won;t be upgradable once they figure out how to do 10, so you’ll have to buy all new stuff, then they’ll get 100 channels and once again need a new system that will FINALLY be able to be upgraded to the 300 channel version later on. All the while running full cover ads in MR proclaiming their system is the ultimate in radio operation and has been for 20 years.
Cynical? Yes, but MRC deserves it, as shown by their past track record.
–Randy
RREBELL,
To keep your integrity intact,I believe You should have kept that comment to yourself…But What Do I Know!![:)]
Cheers, [D]
Frank
Yes I like MRC and don’t care what it looks like inside and reliable no wonder I have to ever take one apart.
Integrity comes from admiting ones mistakes! In my own defence I bought it cheap on e-bay and put it away for a futrure project and never really looked at it closely and it was bought without the fancy picture packaging it originaly came with.
Gary,
I would just like to say one thing,My comment was,by no means,a personal attack…
Cheers, [D]
Frank
Edit Gary for RRebell