Prodigy Express Question

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Have a question concerning the PE. According to Tony’s website, the PE has a very limited power rating, something like 1.6 amps or so. The website also says that you can use the PA cab on it to get all the features of the PE. I know that you can use the MRC 8 amp booster with the PA (or Tony’s 5 amp booster), could you use it for the PE?

The reason I ask is that it appears that for the same price as the PA, you can get the PE, a PA cab and Tony’s 5 amp booster. I’ve emailed Tony’s and MRC several days ago, and haven’t gotten answers yet. Perhaps someone has tried this already?

2

Tony has his own booster? Haven’t seen that one. But the MRC booster will work with the PE, since it gets its signal from the track power of any othr booster. Although, based on Tony’s review, hooking the PA cab to the PE stil won’t give you all PA features.

–Randy

3

Randy,

Thank you so much for answering! I do highly repsect your opinions in this area of DCC.

I got the idea that using the PA cab on the PE system to get all the PA features was from this:

“The added features of the advance cab can be used with the Prodigy Express system by using a Prodigy Advance Cab.” I guess I missed something.

Thats a bummer because it looks like this is an economic way to get some decent amps and two cabs.

I meant the DCC Specialties booster.

Again, thanks Randy. You the man!!

Dave

4

You can use the 8 amp booster from MRC with the PE. And you can get all of the PA functionality by using the PA handheld. That handheld can be purchased from Micromark for $56.

5

Kevin,

Thanks.

It’s interesting. If you go to Tony’s site and price out the PE, plus the PA handheld and the DC Specialities 5 amp booster it comes out to be the same price as the PA, but with two cabs and more more power. Almost sounds too good to be true.

Dave

6

So you just figured out which products they buy in larger quantities abnd prefer to sell!

There is often very little logic to pricing structures like that. But generally a seller will be more agressive in his pricing if he actually wants to sell a product. This usually means he buys a larger quantity of it and has negotiated a better price.

John