I got my Walthers Sale catalog yesterday and my wife is insisting that I buy 2 E8/E9 A/B B&O units as listed on page 16. They are P2K units powered A and Dummy B with Decoder and sound for 149.98.
A couple of quick questions:
This seems like a great price. The New P2K E7s on page 15 will be $225 for just the A unit with decoder and sound. Is there something wrong with the E8 units?
I have 2 Lifelike E7s (I think they are E7s)that are still in the box. My intention is to put a cheap decoder in each of the 2 Lifelike units and make 2 ABA sets. Any reason I would have problems doing that?
If you plan on doing the ABA consist, B&O only had E7Bs not E8Bs. If you don’t mind this, then by all means go for it.
If you buy the newer units w/sound your consist should all be identical sound locos or the decoder only ones will not run together properly in the mix.
Hi Nigel, thanks for the quick reponse. Can you help me out here? What are “silent” decoders? Do you have any recommendations - I normally use digitrax decoders.
bogp40 - Although the units are different manufacturers and ages, couldn’t I use Decoder Pro to speed match the engines or is there some other potential problem. Thanks
Oops. I went downstairs and dug out the units I have. They are P2K NOT Lifelike although they are some 5 years old at this point they have been test run only. It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble…it’s what you think you know that isn’t true!
Well I bit the bullet and ordered 2 sets. I’ll probably run ABA and use them to primarily haul the Walthers Heavyweight cars that I’ve been buying. I may also haul varnish with an AA lashup and pull 30 car freights with an ABBA. We’ll see.
Still looking for input on proper decoders for the original P2Ks.
I’m with Nigel- get a good-quality inexpensive decoder for the non-sound E-units. Not all inexpensive decoders are noisy.
I’d recommend an NCE D13SRP as your “cheap” decoder. They’re (in my opinion) one of the best deals on the market, listing for just under $23. Several mail-order places offer them for less.
Even at list price, it’s a much better deal, price-, feature- and performance-wise, than the low-end offerings from MRC and Bachmann. The D13SRP is silent-running, has a great collection of lighting features and, importantly, plays well with all of the DCC systems on the market when it comes time to program it.
Any LHS that has an account with Walthers can get them.
Good advice guys. I’ll check out the aforementioned NCE D13SRP decoder as well as the candy store. I seem to remember that the older P2K E8s had some kind of issue with reversed wires or something? I also don’t know if they have to be hard wired or if I can get the standard 8 pin harness and plug 'em in. Have you guys converted any of these to DCC?
The last few years’ runs of P2K E8As have NMRA DCC sockets. The ones which didn’t are the ones run in the first three or four batches, prior to about 1998. Since the E8B unit came out after they started putting DCC sockets in, if your E8A came factory-bundled with an E8B, then it has a DCC socket.
The only way to be certain whether or not your E8A has a DCC socket is to take the shell off the engine and look. It’d be on a circuit board at the rear of the engine. If it has a socket, use the D13SRP. If it needs to be hard-wired, save a couple bucks and get the D13SR.
All of the P2K E7As have NMRA DCC plugs.
The only issue I can remember with older socket-equipped P2K E units is that if the loco has a Mars light and you want to use it with the DCC decoder, you may need to solder one of the loose wires on the NMRA harness to one of the pins on the plug.
BTW, I just went back and corrected a mistake I made in my earlier post- it’s the hardwired D13SRs without the plug that are available in four-packs for under $15 apiece. The D13SRPs, with the NMRA plug, are $5-7 more apiece.