Hi folks,
I am building a fleet of locomotives some Athearn, Atlas, P2K, Bachmann Spectrum. All are going to have decoders. I am changing the motors in all of my Athearns, a few with Proto Power West and some with the Kato HM-5 replacement motors. The Atlas, P2K, and Bachmanns I will not re-engine. I do not have a layout at this point of my locomotive/Train collecting hobby. I was wondering what I will most likely see when I go to MU/consist different locomotives from my fleet with others (different types of motors i.e. Kato with PPW)? Since I have no experience in running these locomotives on a layout to actually see what is compatable or works right with others I can only ask. I will be running TCS decoders in all. I assume that I will have to adjust some of the CV entries a few times to make some run better with others? Let me know your experiences have been. [8D]
Thanks,
Brad
You seem to have a good understanding of what you want and how to get there. Cv adjustments will make the different manufacturer locos run better together, however, some have lower gearing, like the P2K SDs and these lower geared units you may want to only run together. I don’t know if you want to slow the start voltage and mid range speed of most of your fleet to accomadate a few engines. The Atlas, repowered Athearns, Katos and possibly Bachman should run together w/ only minor CV adjustments. Early Atlas Rocco, almost all decent Switchers can have lower gearing. You should find a club or someone w/ a DCC layout that you can test run and adjust the locos as you fit the decoders.
Bob K>
I have a Lenz DCC system 100 and a mix of Digitrax and TCS decoders. I’ve found that I can’t put the TCS engines into consists in the “reverse” direction, but I can do that fine with the Digitrax engines. So, I just remember that the TCS engines have to go in the “forward” direction.
I don’t know if this is a problem with the TCS decoders themselves, or an incompatability with the Lenz DCC system. I’ve e-mailed TCS, but haven’t gotten a reply yet.
I’ve had to reprogram the starting and midrange CV’s on some Bachmann GP 35’s and GP40’s to run them in a consist with each other. It seems the GP40’s are faster in all ranges so I’ve adjusted them to run at the speeds the GP35’s are running.
It should be the same between different manufacturers. Slow the faster loco’s down by adjusting the CV’s that control the start, midrange and top end speeds.
You will need a track to test the loco’s on after making adjustments to know if they are preforming the way you want them to.
Bill