Assuming that for the most part that Digitrax is not suffering the same supply chain delays, out of stock situations (I say assuming because I’m too lazy to investigate inventories on line; feel free to correct me, it happens to me all the time [:D]) then why are they not having issues and NCE is? Same basic corporate structure, same basic product line, same basic manufacturing models? I certainly have no idea why, but there’s something below the surface here maybe. I hope not. Though I don’t use any NCE products I know they are top shelf products and I wouldn’t want to see any long term negative impact from this present situation.
Neal, instead of offering sarcastic replies, take a look at the first reply on this thread, which was mine, and explain to me how and why 2+ years later, after repeated phone calls, NCE still has my Switch-8, claiming that replacements are still on back order.
Rich
I’m sure NCE isn’t large enough to manufacture every one of their products. I’m sure many items like cables, some circuit boards and even the little black box everything goes in is outsourced to many other companies. While the pandemic was over awhile ago, many things have happened since. I remember last year of the severe flooding that wiped out whole towns in China where many things are manufactured or assembled. One ship blocked the Suez canal and damaged the global commerce for a long time. The Ford motor company actually had to rent farmland to park thousands of vehicles because of a chip shortage. So that being said. NCE is infinitesimal compared to Ford. Global suppliers will stock Ford long before NCE. That stands for chips all the way down to an LED. My ex company had several trucks parked for almost a year before Caterpillar had the parts available to get them up. That’s insane and would never have happened a decade ago.
Don’t blame the business model. Sometimes this stuff happens. It seems to be happening more often and to every industry. Not just DCC. Digitrax being a larger company probably has the resources to stock parts and supplies for an extended time. NCE being a small fish would rather spend resources on development and got caught short when the world turned to crap.
Pete.
Pete, just for my own education, is Digitrax really a much larger company than NCE? In my involvement in the hobby it seems they’re mostly 50-50 in usage.
A lot in buisness depends on planning. In an ideal world for them, everything would be just-in-time stocking and selling, this is far from reality. In buisness you have a plan but that plan includes a lot of guesses. Storage is another thing and with electronics you also get to factor in if something will become outdated.
I guess that Digitrax has a 25-30% larger market
Peter
Digitrax is a larger enterprise than NCE. I couldn’t get into either ones financials but NCE has fewer dedicated dealers. NCE had some issues with the European market that they had to struggle with a few years back. Something about the radio frequency or something like that. I can’t remember. That set them back dealer wise and financially. I believe the NCE dual throttle system was another cash cow that never really gave milk. While NCE makes some awesome products, they did have some that went the way Wangro did.
Pete.
NCE started as a subcontractor to Wangrow. They supplied components and the command station software for the SystemOne.
Their Power House Pro was orginally intended to be sold under the Wangrow brand, but Wangrow passed on it. It was developed by NCE to answer Digitrax’s continual evolution, which was beginning to exceed the SysOne in both features and pricing.
Rather than lose their investment, NCE marketed their ready to sell PHPro themselves, and could not reach an agreement with respect to software licencing with Wangrow.
Diigtrax already had a good head start, with name recognition and a known product line.
Hi,
My local hobby shop says they’re still around. Howver, they’re very small, like 10 people or less swamped between everything.
My advice, find a local hobby to deal with NCE for you. They will deal with requests from dealers and shops, but may not have the time for a troubled consumer.
I do that and I have no problem getting anything NCE. Sometimes it takes longer than not, but it will get done. Via the hobby shop though, not directly.
Hope this helps!
This was mentioned in another thread, but I’ll post it here, just in case people are only reading specific threads. NCE indeed had a huge parts supply issue. Their design. In particular for the PH Pro used components from the 1990s and many chips suppliers just decided to stop making them with the pandemic. So they have been forced to redesign the product with newer parts.
New versions of the PH pros are out now though I don’t know what stocking levels are. The upside is they now have USB instead of DB9 serial and much faster processors. Though honestly I don’t know that you’d notice that.
Lots of misinformation here. First of all, almost nothing is in stock on NCE’s website for two reasons. First, there is some tax law in NY State that makes it expensive to hold inventory, so they mostly build for their dealers and ship directly to them without holding any stock directly. Secondly, they can’t compete on price, they sell at MSRP so as not to undermine dealers, so no one would want to buy directly.
There probably are lingering production or chip issues, but generally speaking, dealers do have product in stock.
NCE’s new Gen4 radio system is 900mhz, not Wi-Fi based. It has 10 channels, with channel 0 working with the existing 916.5mhz equipment. It has improved memory in the RB-03 (assumed name) that can support the full 62 ProCab-Rs instead of the 16 currently supported on the RB-02 with its 512 bytes of screen quadrant refresh buffer memory. It also implements smart cab protocol to reduce the double polling lag. It’s been “coming soon” for over 2 years now.
The DCC market is not drying up. There is as high a demand as ever for DCC equipment. Digitrax has (somewhat) newer designs meaning that they aren’t as vulnerable to legacy chip shortages as NCE.
Digitrax absolutely has a larger installed base, but I’m not convinced that they are selling more, and even dealers probably don’t know, as some dealers tend to push one system over the other, so they are not representative of the whole market.
Digitrax and NCE are only two DCC manufacturers out of many, and have much smaller marketshares in Europe where there are several modern DCC systems available, but that’s a whole different rabbit hole.
So here’s a positive comment on NCE as I had an issue with a DB5 Booster. I bought one online from a reputible seller. Hooked it up and plugged it in; nothing happening.
Called NCE spoke to Ed. Asked me to plug the power supply itself into another outlet as the power supply should light up. It didn’t and he said he would send me another power supply; no questions asked. I offered to send him back the one I had and he told me to discard it. It arrived yesterday. Will work on hooking it up on the weekend.
Now that’s what I call service from NCE!
As with many things electrical, stuff happens. This one happened to me, but as someone who understands that nothing is 100% perfect, I get it, and I’m pleased that I can now get the layout back up and running.
Neal
1 Like
Excellent news, Neal. Thanks for posting.
Rich
Agreed. NiCE to see a positive post about a manufacturer for a change. [:)]
Tom