Hi, I’m new to DCC and wondered if anyone has used decoders from TTE? I am thinking about putting their decoders in my P2K GP7’s. I have one decoder from NCE (P2KSR) installed in a GP7, but the shell does not fit good after the installation. I use the NCE power pro 5 amp system. Any help would be appreciated!
Decoders made to Tony’s specifications are from NCE.
I have purchased Tony’s DCC decoders and they work great.
JIM
My favorite fleet decoder is the D13SRJ by NCE, so NCE decoders are great in my experience … which means the TTE decoders should be a fine product too, then if NCE makes them.
NCE decoders are very good, I use D13SRJ’s most everywhere. But in my P2K GP-7’s I use the Digitrax DH163L0. That one is TRULY plug and play since it includes the current limiting resistors for the light bulbs. If you’re going to swap for LEDs it makes no difference, but if you don’t want to replace the bulbs, the Digitrax one is the only way to go. Takes longer to get the shells off than install the decoder.
–Randy
Thanks for the replies. It could be the digitrax DH163LO I had in mind…I knew there was a decoder for the P2K GP 7’s that didn’t require changing the lights or adding resistors. I have also solved the problem of the shell not fitting…the replacement light bulbs extended out too far. I pushed them back in and secured with some tape.
I am still unable to program any of the lighting effects for my P2K E6’s with NCE decoders. I want the Mars lights on, but nothing happens when I try to program it through NCE lighting effects, or changing the CV. When I change to DC mode, remove the decoder, and put the plug back in, the Mars light works fine. If anyone has experience with P2K E6/7 units and NCE decoders, again any help would be appreciated.
I installed NCE decoders into some older model P2K E8s and had to totally rewire all of the lights and discard the P2K circuit board in order to get the mars light to work, because P2K uses a dual-filament bulb that is not compatible with the NCE or any other decoder’s mars function…
How did you wire this in? If you connected F1 to the extra pin ont he 8-pin socket it will sometimes work - but you need to program the decoder for a simpel on/off function, as it is using the P2K circuit at that point. But a far better effect can be generated by installing a 1.5v bulb and resistor and connecting that to one of the extra decoder function wires (and blue common), and programming the decoder to generate the Mars light. The P2K circuit just blinks back and forth between 2 filaments in a single bulb, and really doesn’t look quite right.
–Randy
This may or may not help you.
I was able to get the Mars light function to work on my P2K E6 by switching one of the wires on the 8 pin connector from my Digitrax decoder. There is an application note from Digitrax on their site where one wire is switched to a different pin on the connector.
Here’s the link to the application note.
http://www.digitrax.com/appnote_p2ke6e7.php
This might help.
Scott
Thanks again for the input…you may be onto something about the circuit board and the P2K E6 wiring. I just got off the phone with Larry at NCE (very helpful guy), and we were able to get the bottom headlight functioning as a Mars light. However, the bottom light is supposed to be a nomal headlight and the top light a Mars. I am sending the locomotive and D13SRP decoder to NCE and hopefully they will get it figured out. I need to get this issue resolved as I have 2 P2K E6’s and 2 E7’s.
The fix that was shown in application note addressed the problems that you mentioned in your last post.
By changing the wire and remapping the functions I have independent control of both the regular and Mars headlights. F0 controls the regular headlight and F1 controls the Mars light. You have to do the remapping of the functions or it doesn’t work correctly.
This turned out to be a really nice effect for only 15 minutes of additional work.
Hope you get it resolved.
Scott Sonntag
Cacole nailed it. Larry from NCE had me send my P2K E6, with the D13SRP decoder I installed, to him. He called a couple of days later and had the problem fixed. He totally disconnected everything from the P2K circuit board and mounted a D13SR decoder to it on some insulation. The decoder wires were then connected with the locomotive wiring. The P2K bulbs were replaced with NCE Sunny White LED’s with 1k 1/4 ohm resistors. The locomotive was back to me within a week of sending it. The E6 light and Mars light functions perfect now, and looks really good. Now I need some more LED’s and resistors…I have 3 more E units to do!