Serious DCC Users
Brian Considine wrote Hornby's new HO model - Rivarossi Br 58 “As a modeller the last thing I want in a locomotive is a chip chosen by a bean counter - like most serious DCC'ers I want to fit the chip of my choice, however, I do want it to be easy to fit e.g. Piko Hobby OHE's.” So what is a serious DCC’er? I understand that there are some quite fundamental differences in how people approach the use of DCC in their prototype of choice. Admittedly my knowledge is based on the New Zealand scene, which has a pretty wide variety of choice as to what is available. The average US modeller wants to buy a locomotive and put the chip of their choice into it. Digitrax is pretty widely used by the US outline modellers in NZ. The average European modeller wants to buy a locomotive with a sound chip (most likely to be ESU) already installed in it. The average British modeller is DC very few have DCC and those that do are most likely to go to either Hornby’s own DCC system or Digitrax. Now when it comes to playing with set up, the European modellers are the ones leading the way. As and when new technology has come out it is the European modellers that literally leap in, buy it and play (operate) with it. Am I a serious DCC’er? Well I have made a decision that I will use it to only run my trains. The locomotives that I purchase now have sound chips pre installed. I can tune the chip to have the acceleration, deceleration, maximum speed and sound volume that I want. I would prefer not to have to do this, but I do as the ESU default settings (Address 3 etc) are not the best settings for a locomotive. If I was to expand what I currently have then this is the route that I would go: Locomotive Chips ESU or Zimo Accessory Decoders Viessmann Control Equipment ESU or Zimo Train Detection Uhlenbrock The New Zealand DCC market is dominated by Digitrax. I have no issues with their locomotive chips, except that they do not have sound chips that are comparable to ESU/Zimo ones. I am not a fan of their hand held controller (way to many buttons), and I do not like the fact that they are unable to send multi protocol (ie DCC and Motorola) signals. As a European modeller this is important to me. ESU, Uhlenbrock, Viesmann and Zimo are all able to, Why can’t the American manufactures do so as well. So am I a serious DCC user or just an educated one? John

I can relate to a lot of what you're saying there John. The DCC scene here is the same as you say about NZ. It is all Digitrax or You can pay outrageous prices for something else. I use mainly ESU equipment and used Lenz Gold as my standard decoder up until about now as I have decided to start using Lokpilots' where I cannot instal a Loksound. I aim to have all my points digitally controlled too. I will probably get the forthcoming LDT turntable decoder too if it does what I currently understand it will. I have shuttle lines set up for automated control and have no facility for DC operation at all. I have a Lomaus 2 handheld and an ESU Mobile control for additional control to my ECoS command station so I would say that I probably am a serious "DCC'er". I buy all my stuff direct from Germany as it is considerably cheaper than buying it from Aus. I'm not too keen on US DCC as the US sound decoders are not a patch on ESU's. I agree with your comments on the Digitrax handheld. Many handhelds are tooo bulky and have too much irrelevance on them. The ESU Mobile is just right in this respect as has no more than you really need. This is my prefered set up Locomotive Decoders: ESU, Lenz or Zimo Accessory Decoders: LDT, Lenz Control Equipment: ESU ECoS with Mobile Control for ECoS Train Detection: LDT or Viessmann a distant second I suppose whether you are a serious "DCC'er" or not depends on how into it you are. Many people only use it for train control as they prefer traditional analogue control panels. I should add that my reasons for replacing my standard decoder from a Lenz Gold is nothing to do with the quality or ability of the decoder. It is very good. My concern is that Lenz do not seem to be progressing their digital systems and seem to be stagnating. sU on the other hand is developing and knocking out lots of new equipment.

Serious DCCer? As opposed to casual DCCer? I suppose I'm serious. I wouldn't consider building a home layout without DCC. In fact, I'm looking to try to install DCC sound in every loco I operate, and I plan to operate a large fleet. Loksound 3.5 is my standard, and I have several decoders waiting to be installed. I'm still working the bugs out of getting one in my Roco BR64; there's just too much wire and not much room. Maybe next week I'll have it squared away finally. My club is Canadian prototype and we run a North Coast DCC system. We run a wide variety of decoders and several locos have sound. Soundtraxx is the most popular sound decoders for typical EMD diesels, but we have some QSI (which is terrible in every way, actually) running and a couple of Loksound units in the works. I'm spearheading the upgrade of the layout with new boosters and circuit protectors going in, along with a DCC based signal system. We won't touch the Digitrax signal system; everything has to be hooked up to LocoNet, and we don't want to be stuck with a second buss that depends on their system. My exposure to Digitrax is that it is mind-numbingly complicated and not very flexible (can you say Hexadecimal?). NCE's throttles (even the ones with a huge number of buttons) are much easier to use than Dizzitrax's stuff. All of our DCC gear is American except the Loksound decoders. European digital systems aren't usually readily available here, and there's not much penetration the other way either. That's why no American systems have multiprotocol support. For my own use, I have an old Lenz system which would need a huge upgrade before I could use it again, and a Roco Lokmaus system out of a starter set. I haven't made up my mind which system I intend to use for my home layout, though I'm interested in the Ecos system, and perhaps using Freiwald software and interfaces for automation of some of the traffic on my layout. We will have to wait and see what develops there. Jurgen

Hi Jurgen, My layout is DCC controlled. I have 6 dead sections (5 in the storage yard). It is all controlled with a Marklin 6021. Its about 10 years old and while I know I need to replace it, at the moment I do not know what I am going to replace it with. Wellington is a quite a European hub in NZ. My fellow modellers have quite a range of Control equipment. I have played with an Intellibox, but for some reason it just does not do it for me. I have also had a play with the Marklin Central Station, and while it is really cool, I am seriously considering the ESU Ecos. Hopefully at Easter, I am going to be able to have a really good look at one and see what it is like. One thing I have noticed is that people get very attached to “their” brand, Digitrax users possibly being the most overwhelming. I admit that I am probably guilt of this as well. I have yet to find a chip that is better than the Locsound or Zimo sound chip. NZ is becoming quite a Locsound region. The premier scale in NZ is 9mm to the Foot (basically O gauge track with 1:32 stock) and these guys have tried a lot of sound chips and have settled on locsound as their standard. They do however use Digitax control equipment! A funny story is that the 9mm boys went out to dinner at the last convention (Fielding 2006) with the European gauge 1 group. Most conventioneers would never have believed that to be possible. The 9mm boys were most interested in a friend’s clinic held at Fielding about installing and programming chips. He is running an update clinic at the Napier convention at Easter. Like minded people find those with similar interests. John

Hi John: I've been involved in my club's DCC system since we decided to go digital about 15 years ago. At that time DCC per se didn't exist yet; the NMRA was just working on standards for it. We looked at Keller Engineering, Digitrax and Lenz, and picked Lenz since it was ready to go and had the most features. About 6 months later, Wangrow brought out System One, which I would have picked if it had been out earlier. System One is the same format as the present North Coast Engineering system. About 12 years ago, seeing that Lenz was slow to upgrade its capabilities, we decided to dump it in favour of a System One compatible DCC system. I rejected Digitrax back then because its controller was strange and had a poor display, and the system only supported 16 addresses. The address issue was quickly corrected, but the controller remained, and still remains in use. The process of programming with their controller is like some secret masonic ritual which only the initiated may perform. Having to translate everthing between Decimal and Hexadecimal is also unnecessarily painful. Their system has always been hardware-driven rather than user friendly; it was designed by an electronics engineer, not a modeller, and behaves that way. You may also consider that the menu system used to access the functions also makes it impossible to ring the bell and blow the horn at the same time. Try it sometime. I was worried about trying Loksound at the club. We were used to Soundtraxx and they were a tough act to follow. A loco with a Soundtraxx SD40 decoder sounds so much like the real thing, it's eerie. The model revs up and idles just like a real loco; you get the sense that the train is coasting as you slow down, and as you stop, the motor sound decends into the destinctive turbo whirr that takes me back to many a loco facility I have visited. Our first try with a Loksound decoder was very disappointing. The person who did the installation was a professional, but wasn't familiar with Loksound. The sound was broken and distorted and there was no trace of the diesel-electric transition effect. I later obtained a Loksound programmer and downloaded a new soundbyte into it and set the thing up as a diesel-electric with transition (it thought it was a steam loco, for some reason...) and took it back, and now it's as good as the Soundtraxx units. It's better, actually, since it has more flexible function mapping than Soundtraxx. (We have two different versions of Soundtraxx decoders which have conflicting function maps, so that the bell and horn sounds are reversed on one, and can't be corrected; amazingly stupid, really.) One of the main reasons I'm thinking ECoS is that it has the highest compatibility with Freiwald software http://www.freiwald.com/ , which is among the best automation software available. It has a ton of other capabilities as well, and they even have a system of controllers which connect to your computer(!) rather than the DCC system. But this is only interesting if you want to have computer control. The ECoS is impressive on its own as well, but I don't intend to use it for running trains directly, it would just be the command station. I would use the ESU radio controllers if I went that way. <sigh> so many choices, so little money... Jurgen

Well, I started out with a Roco Lokmaus (the original one) from a start set but after "dipping my toe in the water" progressed rapidly to the Lenz Set01 with the LH100 hand controller... was fairly content with it but felt it was restricted by using push buttons for speed control; I had a look at the LH90 hand controller but wasn't happy that to get a rotary control, the display was actually less good than the LH100, so got increasingly frustrated by the lack of a decent hand controller (although the Lenz ones were light years better than Digitrax!) Never really resolved my "issues" until the arrival of the ESU Mobile Control, which gave me a very good display, a control wheel that although I originally had doubts about, I now think is great, and wireless as well, although battery power is a bit of a problem - still, it uses radio rather than IR so I can cope with that. Latterly also acquired Lokmaus II and Multimaus from Roco sets, but the Mobile control is now my primary handset....also tried a number of decoders, but generally stick to Lenz and ESU, and Zimo when I can get them.