At the end of February, the Controlmaster 20 on the layout went south after 12 years of faithful service. It has always been an important part of the yard ops, so it had to be repaired or replaced.
After contacting MRC back in N.J. and finding out it would be a flat $40.00 to repair it, I sent them the pack with the throttle.
Even after a convention that took the repair guy away for a week and inventory that held it back ready to be shipped back another week, it just got back to me today after only 35 days.
I have to praise them publicly for their rapid service…something that you don’t hear much about lately.
It is good to know that quality service and customer care is not a rare standard in the hobby. It is gratifying, personally, that so many members report happy endings to their occasional problems that must be shipped away for correction.
I have the Prodigy Advance system & think it’s great. Their service is also - I originaly bought the Prodigy - when I tried to change programming on my Lionel Veranda Turbine, I e-mailed them as to how to do it. They responded thaty the original Prodigy would not do what I wanted, but they would up-grade to the PA for $130 - did it & very happy! I have had a couple of questions about programming, and e-mailed them. I always got aa reply in one bussiness day or less!! Great cust svc!![bow]
Yep. I belong to the MRC-DCC yahoo group, and when I had a problem with one of their decoders, an MRC rep personally emailed me and offered to help solve any problems.
All without my having ever contacted MRC about it.
I have an Prodigy Advance system and am very pleased with it. Very underrated system.
I have always been a big fan of MRC’s DC power packs. I currently use two of them to power my Tortoise switch machines, and these things are older than dirt (pre-Tech II, ca. 1970’s). [:)]
However, their DCC decoders cause me endless headaches at my club. [banghead] They won’t program worth a darn, they loose their programming repeatedly, and they don’t sound that good to me, either.
They also flat out lied to me at the Springfield (MA) show. It was pointed out on the 'net that the new Atlas S-unit sound board was of a 244 prime mover (V-12) instead of the 539 or 539T (a straight 6, which is what they actually had). I approached MRC at Springfield, and asked them about it. The factory rep. said that it was indeed a 539 sound effect, and that the rumors are wrong because they record all their own sound effects. I apologized, saying that one can’t believe everything you read on the 'net, and wandered away. Then, in a recent Model Railroad News, I see they reviewed the MRC S-unit sound board, and the headline reads something like, “MRC produces great 244 sound effects for Atlas Switchers!” (with no mention that it’s the wrong engine). Sigh.
Still, MRC is a great DC power pack company. I highly recommend their DC products as they seem to last forever.
Or it could have something to do with the full page advertisements they run in almost every issue… [;)]
I have always looked at MRC as a great DC powerpack but I am hesitant to embrace their DCC products because of all the negative feedback I have seen. If my Troller Momentums ever give up the ghost I would look to MRC for a DC powerpack for sure. It’s good to know they have A1 service!
The Last Mountain & Eastern Div. of the Western Pacific operates with (3) three Controlmaster 20s. They are giving great service and I am most happy with them. They are highly recommended to those of us that are NOT going DCC.
That controlmaster has been a workhorse for us…but right after the holidays, it started sticking wide open on and off. It was the strangest thing I had ever experienced. Then it just stuck open for good. I looked around on E-bay for a while and never saw one come up, so I sent it in to get fixed.
I would recomend their repair service to anyone who asked me.
We had a run of control pots go bad in some equipment I used to build. Voltage going to some infrared lamps would stick on full brightness no matter what the control knob was set on. Like you said, REAL strange…
Where are you seeing all the negative feedback about all of MRC’s DCC products ? Yes, MRC’s first DCC systems did have problems; but their Prodigy series is praised by just about everyone who has tried one. The majority of complaints I’ve seen about MRC DCC products have been about their decoders, not any of the Prodigy systems.
The only MRC DCC products that still have problems with quality are their DCC decoders – as we hear on this Forum on almost a daily basis. It is unfair and down-right wrong to say that all MRC DCC products are poor choices. Their decoders should not be lumped together with their DCC control systems as they have very different reputations.
While you should not hesitate getting a Prodigy Express, Prodigy Advance, Prodigy Advance 2, or the new wireless system; you should avoid their decoders.
Actually, I would no longer avoid their newer decoders. The sound decoder for the Atlas S2 is a good one. Motor control is excellent and I like the sound, even if it’s not prototypically correct because I wouldn’t know the difference anyway. This one also has a shut down feature.
MRC has also announced that they will now produce decoders with CV read-back capability. It seems to me like these are really improving in their decoder department. And, their wireless DCC system is simply terrific.
jwils,
The Atlas S-unit board is not a “good one”.
Last month, a new-ish member of our club bought a new Atlas B&M S-4 #1269 switcher with MRC sound decoder installed from a local hobby shop that will install sound for you. This LHS is a professional DCC installer and knows his stuff (www.tracksidesales.com).
The loco was already programmed to 1269 by the installer at the LHS. However, due to our club DCC policy, each member gets a block of 100 numbers, and our member here picked 2400’s. He needed to reprogram the loco to 2469 so as not to conflict with someone else’s numbers.
He took the loco out of the box (he’d never run it before) and gave it to me to reprogram. I put it on the track, selected 1269, woke it up by pressing a function, and the loco made sound and moved back and forth. No problems (yet).
At this time, I should explain our DCC programming set up. We have a Digitrax DCS100 Chief with a Loy’s Toys Fuel Tank (power supply) sitting on a large cart. The Chief, with attached DT400 throttle, is connected through a toggle to a piece of track that will switch from “Run” to “Program” with a DPDT. We have a computer running Railroad&Co.'s TrainProgrammer software through an MS100 serial interface. We also have a Tony’s Train eXchange “PowerPax” programming booster that can be switched into or out of the circuit. There is no other track, nor are there any other connections to the Chief or to the computer.
Back to the MRC powered engine…
After testing the loco to make sure it works as 1269, I tried to Ops Mode program the loco on the main to 2469 by using the DT400 throttle (this has proven to be the best way with other MRC decoders like the Athearn 2-6-0’s). I had the address selected, hit PROG until I was in Ops Mode, punched in 2-4-6-9 and hit ENTER. Since it was already in 4-digit mode, I left CV29 alone. I hit EXIT, se
I’m sorry that your member is having this problem. I assume that we are both talking about a #1663 MRC decoder. I installed mine myself, and I’m not that experienced. I progammed it with MRC Wireless. Mine programmed with no problems and runs beautifully, and sounds good. Others on other forums have made good comments as to how much they like this decoder. So, it could be that you have encountered a particular faulty decoder, or maybe the installation is faulty.
Have you or your friend called MRC tech support? Have you posted the problem on the Yahoo MRC site? I think that this might be a good idea and it would be helpful if you could then post the result on this thread.
I have two older MRC sound decoders that have never given me any problems, other than the fact that they have poor motor control (won’t start or stop without a little jump and they won’t crawl as slow as I would like). I wouldn’t even call these “junk”, but they sure don’t perform as well as I would like. However, there’s no way I can call my newer 1663 junk. I’m no apologist for MRC’s past decoder development, but have to say that it certainly seems that they have a winner with this newer one. Maybe I’m just lucky and happened to get a good one, but I couldn’t be more pleased with it.
When I got my DC Controlmaster 20 about 8 years ago, I was having trouble getting my BLI steamers to work with it except in the upper 1/4 quadrant of the control. I phoned MRC, the man on the phone suggested that I use the “Nudge” control, since BLI required a much higher starting voltage than normal because of the DC/DCC mode. Took his advice. Worked like a charm. Even though I don’t use my BLI’s very much anymore, I still use the Nudge ‘on’ all the time (it cuts out automatically after about 15 smph) to get better low speed starting control on my DC brass. That particular power-pack is the best one I’ve ever had, and MRC REALLY stands behind them. It’s so nice to actually FOLLOW a train around my garage empire.
I was poking around Youtube yesterday and did a search for “MRC sound decoders”. There’s quite a few videos on there. (as well as other mfg’s sound decoders) It’s nice being able to see and hear them in operation so you can make a more informed purchase.
I wish the people that did the videos would provide a little more info about the exact setup though.