Hello, I have seen a lot of decoder failures lately, and I am not sure what is going on. First all these are only numbers for N Scale products. I have seen a startling trend, decoders failing in locomotives where they had been running for years. The offenders are Digitrax, TCS and NCE. I have yet to get an Atlas locomotive with a factory NCE decoder to actually work, all 6 of the Atlas units never worked with the factory installed decoders. I have had 42 TCS decoders fail, but they are from a bad batch TCS has acknowledged. I have had 65 Digitrax decoders fail, all installed in Kato locomotives. On the fun part so far only 3 Zimo decoders failed out of 72 locomotives with the Zimo decoders And only 1 ESU failure out of 52 installs. Is anyone see any sort of rash of decoder failures in their locomotives?
I've been hearing of ESU failures in relatively recent batches. It sounds like it could be a component issue from a source supplier.
I've had two Loksound 5 in a single locomotive fail in less than two years, and a third failure in a 3 month old locomotive.
All three have been replaced once, but the two NexT18 micro decoders are out of warrany now. I plan on sending them to ESU for repai when I get around to it.
Recently I had 3 ESU Atlas legacy sound decoders go bad after initial testing was ok and after adding front and rear LED's and then installing (the first 2 decoders) Prior to installing a speaker; they ran fine for about 5 minutes and then stopped..... no decoder recognized... nothing. The 3rd one tested ok, downloaded the sound file, LED's added and tested ok. I installed the speaker and then... no sound. Tried to download a different sound file and it errored out saying there was no available memory(or something to that point) Previously I have installed 8 of the ESU sound decoders for the Atlas legacy locos (for Atlas locos prior to 2016) had the usual install battles - motor tab issues, front frame makes very poor contact (if any) because the decoder is too narrow. The original Atlas DC board as well as the Digitrax decoder that I installed years ago, are both sized correctly to fit the front frame; the ESU board is NOT so it takes a lot of extra effort to install these. I'm going to send those 3 decoders back to ESU for warranty replacement. I really don't know if I am going to do anymore of the Atlas sound conversions as I don't think it's worth the extra time and money for the old Atlas locos. I've done 80+ Kato locos using the ESU, Kato specific sound decoders for all Kato loco models and had one failure. As important; (after the installs) the Kato locos run exceptionally well. I still have all of my digitrax decoders that I replaced with ESU decoders. I should probably post them on the TrainBoard forum to get rid of them. If anybody is interested before I do this just send me a message and we can work something out as they are not doing me any good. Brian
My layout size is substantial, it fills a dedicated building for the layout. I own about 800 locomotives.
Sounds like you need a bunch of Trainboard members to run your layout. On the ESU decoder issue. I have had one Atlas Gold fail and am reluctant to send it in until the other one fails so I can do both at the same time. I am quite disappointed as I thought ESU was the way to go. I have some ScaleTrains and Intermountain that all run fine, so far. The only other decoders I have issues with are the TCS split decoders for older locos. I have difficulty getting the motor control function as I think it should. They run good for a spell then default back to something less desirable. Until recently I caused the failures in decoders.
First - The layout is inside a building dedicated to running the trains either automatically or by a bunch of guys, or a combination of both. Well I saw the same issues with TCS decoders en-mass, turns out the problem was a bug in the software. You need to check with TCS with the build information and if they are part of that build release, they will replace it free of charge. Or at least they used too! The other situation with the resetting, is that the layout may have a loose ground that may have a capacitive discharge that is affecting your decoders. Or the user solder joints for the motor wires are causing the capacitive sparking as well. My bet is a solder joint!
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow! All of us started from zero locomotives, so you're in pretty good company. Look how inexpensively you can upgrade your entire fleet to DCC! And what a great time to enter the hobby, with new/upgraded DCC systems being introduced by multiple manufacturers, and Layout Command Control (LCC) also coming onboard.
We all gotta start somewhere. Depending on the scale you are building in, I have a bunch of N scale bits that I'll be listing online soon. I simply can't see the detail bits on N scale as well as I'd like so I'm going up to On30 and planning/building a new layout (slightly delayed). As @BigJake mentioned, now is a great time to enter the hobby as there are in fact a lot of new products and systems in the works (including ones that I'm working on that are delaying my layout build).
LCC sounds fancy. That's a new one on me. I was already familiar with DCC and can't imagine doing it the "old way" after seeing all the benefits of DCC!
I'll be modeling N scale. I like long trains. I'd certainly be interested in looking at the things you want to sell. I plan to model BNSF / UP from the 90's up to now, so that gives me a broad spectrum of things that might be useful.
DCC controls the trains. It can control other things via stationary decoder, but often, using a DCC bus that just shorted out because a train ran against a switch, to throw said switch and clear the short, just doesn't work. There are work arounds to do it with DCC*, but LCC (Layout Command Control) is a newer NMRA standard protocol (via CAN bus or WiFi) that is designed for managing the layout: switches, signals, occupancy detection, and even throttles, etc. LCC is designed to support communications between nodes autonomously, without requiring a central command station or interface to a computer. Of course, JMRI software running on a computer can be used to simplify configuring the LCC nodes on the bus via a USB-LCC interface. * Methods include separate boosters or circuit breakers that localize the effects of a DCC track bus short, while keeping the DCC bus(es) to accessories running.
I should have noted that TCS' CS-105 command station connects to JMRI running on your laptop, etc. via LCC over WiFi. The CS-105 can host its own WiFi hotspot, or connect to your existing WiFi network. BTW, the Pi Sprog 3 does the same with Wi-Throttle throttles or smartphone apps. But it actually runs JMRI on the Raspberry-Pi host.
Hello Yes, I have had several ESU decoders quit after 5minutes to several hours. I had one TCS decoder fail, and one NCE. In all cases, the companies replaced the parts quickly. The people at ESU (I am converting all my diesels to LokSound) have been really good about help and support and exchanges.
