I see what you are all saying. I am in DCC now but used to be DC with Aristocraft. I have bought a vast majority of my stuff second hand till I started buying recently. I see only five diferences for DCC from DC. DCC seams to run better, proubly from the high constant current, you can consist, sounds are easily controlled, things go wacky when a short occurs and separate control numbers. The sound is what won me over. As far as in house decoders, even Bachmann decided that was a bad idea, they made a deal with Soundtrax for simple decoders and are starting to move into more advanced decoders. Their basic decoders take away most of the problems that kept people away from DCC. They do basic controls and if their is a short they start out where they left off. Also they don’t mention a keep alive but I see no interuptions in sound when it hits spots that would intrerupt sound. Sure they have their issues but overall they seem just as reliable as Atlas and if you buy heavily discounted, very cheap. Funny thing is an MTH got me into DCC but I don’t know if I would buy one of their engines. All manufactures go though issues and hopefully BLI can fix theirs and who knows, the new owners of MTH might put out something amazing, I bought some of their freight cars that were up to my standards, so who knows.
rrebell,
And the funny thing is, my dislike of onboard sound is what convinced me the other features of DCC were not worth the cost or work for my kind of layout.
Sheldon
People like my neighbor that owns a 7 series BMW that has had nothing but problems since he bought it, and several days has just refused to start. I have seen it towed out of his driveway three times in the last year.
This guy scoffs at my Chevrolet Impala for lacking the refinement and subtle engineering nuances of his fine automobile. I gave him a ride to the airport last March when his BMW failed, and he actually criticized the ride quality on the way.
It started when I turned the key.
My Impala is ten times the car his pile of junk is.
-Kevin
I almost used the BMW analogy earlier in this thread…
I was once the shop foreman in a BMW dealership for a few years…
Yes, your Impala, or the Police Special Crown Vic’s that I owned for years, are 80% of the performance and features, five times the reliability, and 1/3 of the cost of BMW 7.
My FORD FLEX LIMITED with twin turbo eccoboost and all wheel drive has higher customer satisfaction and loyalty than any BMW or Benz.
Again, diminishing returns, three times the money, for 20% more performance and “refinement”, at the cost of reliablity.
Kinda sounds like a Broadway or MTH loco…
“Parts left out cost nothing and cause no service problems” - who knows the source of that quote?
Maybe I will buy those three more Bachmann locos even though I don’t really need them…they will cost less than one BLI monster I would have to rewire…
Sheldon
&n
I am going to be vague and not violate my NDA here…
[:#]
About twenty years ago, a manufacturer of industrial diesel engines (exact year, manufacturer, and engine model redacted) decided to remove the Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor from the location immediately before the low pressure turbocharger.
It was determined that this value could be calculated by the control module using input from four other sensors.
The sensor that was deleted cost nothing and caused no service problems… LOL!
Four of these engines entered service in my territory. All four of them began logging fault codes for high exhaust temperature, but there was no exhaust temperature sensor.
This was a huge service problem for over a year, and several software updates were attempted to correct the issue.
In the end, we installed the sensor, which required replacing the exhaust manifolds and wiring harnesses on all four engines.
I hope I was vague enough.
-Kevin
I don’t even want to think how you can POSSIBLY determine the temprature at one point based on the temperature at others. Doesn’t even make sense to me. Something in the middle of two other sensors - you can make an educated guess - if it’s A upstream and B downstream, the value in between pretty much MUST be somewhere between A and B.
I’ve owned several BMWs. None opf them ahs cost me more to own or maintain than other cars I’ve owned. The trick is to avoid the dealer once the warranty and free service are done. But I wouldn’t own a 7 series, too big and bulky. I prefer the performance aspect, thus my current 2012 135.
Guess I’ve been lucky with models, too - any that needed work out of the box were simple fixes, not worth sending back - but there’s little I’m not willing to attempt to fix on my own.
–Randy
Those of us who are ailurophiles of A CERTain age may recognize that, among certain other contemporary issues.
It’s engineers at work, ASSuming something will always be maintained exactly as they designed it. Ask why crankcase explosions are an issue in using certain families of large Caterpillar engines in locomotive repowers. Runs just fine as long as you follow the expensive Cat maintenance with all the expensive Cat parts and supplies. But use “typical railroad maintenance” … and all the potential fuel-economy savings for years are prone to disappear in a very costly BOOM sooner or later…
Another fun misdesign-assumption festival is the original VT365-derived PowerCerebrovascularAccident 6.0L motor. Once you eliminate the long laundry list of crippling errors made to turn a schoolbus motor into a 6BT competitor, you wind up with a pretty good motor… but spend the same money and time on improving an actual Cummins and you get twice the performance with far less unreliability…
The good news for steam fans is ScaleTrains will be starting to offer detailed steam engines without the same electronics. From what I read, this has been an issue for BLI steam engines for some years now.
Not at all.
There is a very strong initiative in the heavy duty industry to remove as many sensors from engines as possible.
There are EPA guidelines that require certain sensors to exist in order to verify that emission control components are functioning as required. If you can demonstrate to the EPA (the agency with legislated authority) that a sensor is not required because you can calculate the value with other inputs, the EPA will allow the manufacturer to delete a mandated sensor.
The “primary turbocharger exhaust gas inlet temperature sensor” was “virtualized” using input from the Exhaust Gas Pressure Sensor, Turbocharger Speed Sensor, individual cylinder Exhaust Temperature Sensors, and commanded fuel rate. The EPA agreed that the calculated value was accurate, and the mandated sensor was removed.
The service problems were with thresholds for logging fault codes, which are also mandated by the EPA. Since the value was calculated, any abnormality in the input to the control module could cause the calculated value to exceed prescribed limits to what is identified as normal operation.
The system would log faults, and derate the engine (which is also EPA mandated), when there was no system failure.
I have said too much, and this has zero to do with ACERT. These were stationary installations.
There is no such thing as typical railroad maintenance. There are locations that take the end user’s responsibility for engine maintenance seriously,
Does this mean ScaleTrains will be making “DC” steam engines?
If so, this might be good news.
-Kevin
Well, their current offerings include DC powered, DCC ready locomotives, currently all diesels.
So, we can hope that they stay with that formula as they rework the MTH line.
Assuming they do offer DC versions without sound, that will in many ways be the ultimate irony of the MTH HO legacy…
The guy who believed all trains needed his “special” sound and control system, having his stuff re-enter the market available in DC form.
And, if Scale Trains does that, and it goes well for them, it says something about Broadway as well.
Sheldon
Not to interrupt this long winded discussion of DC verses DCC, but to get back to my looking for information on my new BLI 4-8-4, can I remove the Rolling Thunder radio card from my Paragon 3 decoder and still have the decoder operate correctly? I will never be purchasing the Rolling Thunder receiver. It also seems likely that the engine will draw less power without the transmitter card.
I can’t imagine why not – I’d expect it to be just a daughterboard taking power and some kind of preamp output. If weasels designed it, it might bridge the output to the sound amplifier, and you’d need to identify where the input and output are and jumper across with little U’s of fine solid wire.
I do expect power consumption to be materially reduced in the absence of RF broadcast, although some of the WiFi chipsets and cores optimized for very high speed have been explicitly designed for extremely low power and good battery-power management. My suspicion is that they’re using obsolescent older RF transceivers or cores from similarly obsolescent 'phone designs…
Just heard back from the BLI maintenance department, and the answer is that the decoder will work fine without the RF daughter board.