From what I’ve been hearing and reading most decoders sense dc or dcc on the rails. so if I do a decoder and sound install on my bachmann 2-8-0 then will it be almost like my bli locos or thereabouts?
Can I tell the decoder, ok if you’re on dc then = no sound? I think that’d be better on the all dc environment of the club I visit. How tough would that be? Or could I flip a yes/no “sound” switch on dcc before I leave home or something like that?
Thanks for sharing.
Most current-production NON-SOUND decoders handle this just fine. There are probably still a few exceptions among certain brands of really low-end decoders. All current NCE, Digitrax, and TCS decoders work fine on DC or DCC so long as CV29 is programmed properly.
Sound decoders are different however. Not all of them support running on DC. Soundtraxx Tsunami will, but the Soundtraxx DSD does not. ESU Loksound does. QSI does, but they aren’t currently sold seperately for user installation. The new Digitrax SFX work on DC. Whether or not you can controlt he sounds when running on DC is a different story. QSI and ESU have controllers to use with DC to activate the sounds. They aren’t comptible with each other, so if you have Loksound AND QSI decoders you’d need both devices to activate sounds. Usually the fixed sounds, like the diesel engine or steam chuff, air pumps, etc work in DC mode - without the controller you can’t trigger the whistle or bell - although with some frantic working of the direction switch you can with QSI.
–Randy
Gary,
In a sense, yes, in that you mean they can tell the difference. However, no, if you mean that they are “dual-mode” and will automatically detect and switch between whichever mode you have running on the layout. For the most part, for now, decoders (sound and non-sound) are not dual-mode decoders.
That depends entirely on the sound decoder. I know that QSI sound decoders are dual mode. I’m don’t know about Soundtraxx, LokSound, or MRC.
Gary, I would think so but I couldn’t tell you exactly how to do it. That would depend on the sound decoder. If you have BLI and/or QSI sound decoders, you can/should download and print out the QSI 200+ page manual. It’s a handy reference but it’s big. It would give you the CV setting for putting the locomotive in permanent “DC - no sound” mode, if it’s possible.
Hope that helps…
Tom
I haven’t bought the decoder(s) yet. figured to get your thoughts on this first. I should have mentioned that in the first post, apologies! thanks for your notes!