OK. You can count me in for if not a tenth, then at least fifthieth unhappy user.
I soldered in a MRC 1626 to an Atlas SMD24 Silver Series, just about six weeks ago.
Didn’t have any problems with it until this afternoon.
The decoder will still run the loco- lights work. etc; But, instead of sound, the decoder keeps beeping. I already removed the loco from the layout, turned on, and off the controller (MRC PA by the way), but this didn’t clear the problem. You put the loco back on the tracks, and it starts beeping.
Guess I will send this back, and tell them to kiss it.
MRC also makes radio controlled stuff (would have chose a better word) for the poor old R/C aircraft- so why don’t they just admit that they have been defeated by other companies, and give up?
Not only that, but the power switch on the PA is chinese oriented. Right to Left.
But let’s not write off MRC yet. Hopefully with the amout of complaints they’re receiving from the customers and vendors, they’re working to improve their decoders.
All of the MRC sound decoders I have had ran incredibly hot. They are covered in a heat shrink material and after a couple weeks the covering is tight around the middle of the decoder leaving the ends exposed. They never last too long after that. We have heard of 40 hour train sets, I call MRCs 40 hour decoders. Unless MRC makes radical improvements I leave them on the “Do not buy” list.
Well, at the risk of incuring the rath of MRC and it’s bashers, I will say I’ve had mixed results with their decoders. I’m in the process of sending back another 1626 tht was DOA (yes I said another). I had a 1626 that was running fine and one day just quit. I replaced it with another and it ran fine, so… Now, when MRC returned it they sent a 1636, which is an N scale decoder. So, that went back. For my troubles they are sending me one of the new mimi sound decoders with turbo exhaust, a 1639, I think, so they are trying to make good. Anyway, I have also had to send back Atlas and digitrax decoders that have failed. Currently I’m wondering about a DZ123. It runs but the top voltage CV does not seem to be working. No matter what value you enter, the engine runs the same top speed, not very fast.
I started to ponder the entire situation and realized;
Most all the decoders are made off shore, principly in China, so quality control is questionable
There are lots of lines of code in these puppies, more with sound and it doesn’t take much of an error to cause a problem.
They are electronics and don’t take well to rough handling and they are shipped half way acrros the globe and then out to individuals or shops.
Heat is their enemy and being crammed into a tiny plastic shell with no ventalation isn’t their most favorite enviroment.
So, I suppose you could say they all do OK considering.
Just some thoughts, I’ll retire now to the pillary.
Yes they are, I got a REAL LETTER from them advising me to change the decoder in my Challenger since they can not make it work the way they said they could. No readback and all CV’s are not changeable.
I will take there advise and get something from Digitrax or?
I’m planning to buy the soon to be released Athearn Big Boy.
I know it has MRC sound in it, (I will replace it with a Tsunami when I get enough money) But would it last longer if I didn’t run it that much a day?
Hard to say. I have had 3 MRC decoders. 1 standard decoder and 2 sound decoders. The standard decoder worked for all of 15 minutes. I know its not the engine or the installation because I took the MRC out and popped a TCS into the same wiring. That decoder in that engine still works flawlessly today.
Of the sound decoders, one lasted 3 weeks and one lasted 4 months. Both sounded and operated terrible and both died of the same thing, meltdown.
My friend has had his challenger for over a year and the decoder works whenever it wants to. Sometimes it wont respond to any commands and sometimes it works just fine.
So although the actual quality may be inconsistent. It IS consistently awful. I do wish MRC would either get the act together or get out of DCC because it is these type of bad experiecnces that can drive people away from DCC. Im not saying that other decoders are perfect. But I have had probably a 97% succsess rate with TCS/Digitrax/ESU. My succsess with MRC has been 0%
About three weeks ago, I installed an MRC brilliance steam decoder into a Spectrum2-10-0, and once now, I have had the same problem of no response from the decoder-
Huh- I thought is was me.
Starting to tremble here.
TCS looks like the best way to go, but I don’t think he is offering sound at this time, maybe never will. I understand that TCS makes their decoders here in the states.
Anyway, referring from my post at the top, MRC want’s me to send the 1626 back to them.
It’s just the hassle of taking the shell back off, hoping not to break any of the detailing; cut the shrink wrap, and desolder all the wires.
I worked on electronics in the industry, and the one thing I hated the most was rework. It never comes out the same the second time around.
I just returned an Athearn SD45 with sound because the MRC chip in it died. It worked perfect for about 5 whole minutes, then intermittently for 5 minutes, and then died completely. At the hobby shop they put it on their programming track and the DCC system could not recognize the chip.
I use a lot of TCS decoders. I have had problems with 3 that I remember. 1 was my fault and in all cases TCS sent a replacement which has worked fine. You are right though that they dont make sound. My top choice for sound is Loksound. By far the best diesel sound decoder around at this time. When diesel tsunami becomes available it will get some competition but at the moment its Loksound all the way. If you cant or dont want to pay for Loksound, the older Soundtraxx are good. I have had good luck with them but they dont offer as many features as Loksound.
A friend of mine purchased a non-sound SD45-2 and installed the Lok Sound decoder. What a difference! My ears tell me that Lok Sound is the way to go.
Hopefully after the earful my LHS’s owner gave Athearn’s customer reps about customer complaints regarding the sound equipped SD45-2s, MRC will make the effort to get it right. Inspite of the criticisms I’m certain we’ll see improvements over time. MRC has to raise its standards if the intent is to stay competitive in the sound arena. [C):-)]
Athearn will be producing sound equipped Genesis EMD Cowls next year. If they come with MRC decoders that sound like the current ones, then I see myself buying a non-sound FP45 and dropping in a Tsunami or LokSound setup.
I totally agree. I always thought the sound equipped athearns (Challenger and Fs) sounded pretty poor. They are great locomotives, if only they put decent electronics in them. And I’m sure that athearn does know about the bad quality of the decoders. The DCC guy at my LHS says that athearn gets so many of the sound equipped engines for service that a few times they have refused to take one and just advised the customer to purchase a different decoder.
You would hope that MRC would get on top of things and make some reliable decoders, but all I have seen over the past few years is that they are making more and more complex things without improving quality. The newer decoders have more features and more things that can go wrong, this is only compounding the problem. Last month a member of the club I belong to brought in a pair of PAs that he had just installed the brilliance decoders in. Again the sound was not very good IMO and they had some strange problems. If they ever hit a small dirty spot in the track, when they got power again the control would keep working and the engine would keep running, but the sound would cut out. The sound would stay off until you pick up the engine and put it back on the track. I had this same problem with my 2 MRC sounders. So they sure havent fixed that. I asked to feel the top of the locos and they were HOT from all the heat the decoders were making. They havent fixed that either. Tonight is another meeting and I plan to ask how his decoders are doing.
I wonder what kind of a contract Athearn made with MRC becuase the reasonable thing to do here is either get MRC to shape up or use different decoders. That hasn’t happened. I hope that the analog Genesis units will come with the same chassis as the sound equipped ones. This would make a very easy sound installation if I decide to buy one. But then again if they are as noisy as the 70MACs you would hardly hear the sound over all the racket.
Good input. Please don’t sit on this. Go ahead and e-mail Athearn ( I have, twice). The more feedback they get back from customers regarding the MRC’s the greater the chance that “something” may be done…or changed.
Do not hold your breath on that one. I spoke to a person at Atherns, happens to be one of my customers, and they are HAPPY with MRC and are not intereted in changing anything. I pressed the issue because I have a Challenger (that si HAUNTED) and have an oreder in for (2) big Boys when they are released.
Some of the answers you get from MRC and Atherns are a little to canned to suite me but that is my [2c]
I think part of the problem is that many modelers today (particularly those under 30) haven’t had the opportunity to listen to prototype diesel or steam locomotives up close and personal. Just a couple of decades back, in many areas across the U.S and Canada railfan-modelers had easy access to railroad mainlines, yards and servicing facilities. Yes, there were No Trespassing signs up then, but there were many friendly railroaders that were very accommodating to railfans.
Many of us enjoyed the thrill of listening to EMD, Alco, and GE locomotives up close at idle and full throttle. Unfortunately today, with liability insurance issues, terrorism fears, and the railroads having cut back on a tremendous amount of trackage…the opportunities are much more limited (even for those of us that do live near rail lines and facilities.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but due to this factor MRC might assume that most of us would be satisfied with the synthesized sounds that we’re hearing from some of their d
Would have replied sooner, but I have PC problems as well.
No, the new brilliance decoders are supposed to be recordings of live sounds- but makes no difference since they have to be digitally recorded. And, if the decoder doesn’t work at all, then makes no difference if the thing has sound or not.
Nope. I wouldn’t dare buy an Athearn with sound. I got better things to waste money on. $100.00 buys a lot of beer!
I typed a not-so-nice letter up for MRC to accompany the 1626 decoder I am going to send back to them tomorrow. I told them that I am NOT going to send amy more of them back for repair. I will crack them in half with a pair of dykes, and dispose of them. Why pay more money to get them repaired, just to give them the opportunity to break down again? That would be ludicris (spelling?).
I swore off of MRC decoders several years ago when they released their first 2-function decoder. They had a special introductory pricing on a decoder equipped diesel engine, which turned out to be a Walthers Trainline engine. The decoder in the engine was defective right out of the box.
As part of the same introductory offer, you could get 4 decoders for the price of 3, and this was back in the days when decoders were still rather expensive. Three out of 4 of those decoders were dead on arrival – so out of 5 MRC decoders only one was good – for about 2 weeks and then it burned out.
Since then, other club members have purchased MRC decoders, both standard and sound, despite my warnings to them about the quality control issue. Out of approximately 20 MRC decoders, only one sound decoder is still running because the owner wanted me to install it in a Con-Cor Galloping Goose that hasn’t been ran more than one hour total.
Based on my experience, I’ll never touch another MRC decoder or Athearn engine with an MRC decoder in it. Until Athearn wakes up and dumps MRC, they’ll get none of my money.
MRC has long been known as producing the most reliable and rugged DC power packs available. I don’t know why they are sullying their reputation with such shoddy DCC decoder products.