I finally bit the bullet and made the jump to DCC. Just for my On30 equipment. The question I have is, has anyone had experience storing DCC locomotives for an extened period? Because I don't have a permanent layout yet the On30 equipment spends 11 months out of the year in the box, usually only coming out to play over the holidays. Will the DCC decoders hold on to their programming that long? Or will I have to reprogram them again next December before I can use them?
I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't maintain their settings while unused. But you never know.
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
Well, I am about as far from a knowledgeable DCC person as you can get, but I can offer a little experience information on you question. I have several HO DCC equipped locomotives, some of which have not been run for well over a year. The decoders are 1st generation, installed in the mid to late '90's or perhaps early '00's. My system (MRC Command 2000, soon to be replaced) is very limited, but in recent weeks, I've taken most of them out of the boxes and they went right back to work.
Hope this helps.
Mike
I have over 250 diesels, all with decoders total. About 1/3 are on the railroad at any given time. They rotate on and off. So far, in 9 years of operations, I have had only one fail. It contained a hybrid decoder that was for the old Dynatrol System (pre DCC) which I used and also worked on NCE system. I have about 10 of those decoders still in service, 1 failed.
Bob
I have over 80 loco's with DCC and have only had a few that have lost memory over a long period of non use. They all were Bachmann Diesel's. All others have not given me a problem.
Bill
I am no computer expert,but I believe you actually burn the inputs into the decoders until you change them.So they would stay there indefinetly.
The only thing that should affect the memory in a chip, apart from subsequent inputs, or material breakdown due to vibration, heat, or oxidation, is electro-magnetic radiation. Any ionizing radiation from x-rays, electrons (static discharge, for example), and other high energy photons or nuclear particles may compromize a single bit stored in memory. The probablility of this happening is in the order of one in tens of millions in a locomotive stored in a box lined with foam.
N.B, - This is just a guess as I am not a physicist, but I did very well on a 30 day Radiation Safety Officer course 22 years ago. Call it a semi-educated guess. IT experts will have more accurate information in all likelihood.
-Crandell
I agree with Selector except for the photons. I don't think photons would do it.
He did, however, bring up another storage issue. Foam holds moisture. Moisture encourages corrosion.
If you store your locomotives in foam, you should pack a dessicant in there with them. Better yet, protect them with some other material.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I have several locomotives with DCC decoders that are used in rare cases as they are KCS locomotives but outside of my layout era. They have been equiped with decoders for several years and run fine when put on the layout. From time-to-time a decoder's brains (CVs) will get scrambled and the decoder will need to be re-programed. This is a major advantage of a DCC system which interfaces with Decoder Pro. I have the locomotive saved in Decoder Pro; I just put it on the programing track; fire up Decoder Pro and re-write all of the CVs back to the decoder.
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
I've never had a decoder lose it's settings, and some of mine have been unused for a year or two as the layout is rebuilt (much more slowly than I anticipated).
But I'm not the least bit worried about it.
I have JMRI roster entries for all my decodered locos, so if one does lose a setting (or I hose it up), all I have to do is reload the settings.
And, those roster entries are stored on a mirrored network drive, so even if the primary drive crashes I'm still covered.
Steve
Storing a loco would have nothing to do with remembering the programing. I have had some decoders lose programing due to derailments and shorts. One time a club member broadcast a cv3 change to all the locos on the layout to 255. That was fun running that day.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
His question was:
stebbycentral the equipment spends 11 months out of the year in the box, usually only coming out to play over the holidays. Will the DCC decoders hold on to their programming that long? Or will I have to reprogram them again next December before I can use them?
the equipment spends 11 months out of the year in the box, usually only coming out to play over the holidays. Will the DCC decoders hold on to their programming that long? Or will I have to reprogram them again next December before I can use them?
The answer is:
Yes, they should be fine.
Springfield PA
Flash memory does and will lose its 'mind' after an extended period of time, however storing them between the Christmas holiday season will probably not be a problem.
Keep in mind that if one does 'forget' it won't be reset to defaul conditions, but rather it will have a whole bunch of random settings, some of which may nbot even be valid. Many brands of decoders have a reset option, most common is setting CV8 to 8 but some are different. This causes the decoder to write valid and known values to all configurable CVs - in fact the flash memory 'forgetting' might be why occasionally you buy a decoder and it either won;t take programming or it behaves in a very odd manner even though you have the wiring all correct. This is why I recommend first resetting a new decoder and THEN programming it the way you want. You will always start from a known, valid condition. Plus trying a new install on the program track will keep you from frying it if you did make a wiring mistake.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Phoebe Vet I agree with Selector except for the photons. I don't think photons would do it. He did, however, bring up another storage issue. Foam holds moisture. Moisture encourages corrosion. If you store your locomotives in foam, you should pack a dessicant in there with them. Better yet, protect them with some other material.
Phoebe Vet, X-rays and gamma rays are both high energy photons which can penetrate "soft" substances of low density to great depths, as you realize. They are also ionizing radiation, which will affect the substrate in memory devices.
Crandell:
I was taught that X-rays and Gamma rays were electromagnetic radiation, but I defer to your more specialized training.
I'm always learning new things in here.
They are electromagnetic radiation, as is all light. Light comprises photons which have a duality of being both particle and wave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation
selector They are electromagnetic radiation, as is all light. Light comprises photons which have a duality of being both particle and wave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation -Crandell
I always love the random directions these threads can launch off into...
I take it you didn't want a more detailed explanation, Stebby? I thought an explanation of the physics involved, as I understand it, would help to place your question at the outset into some rationale. I regret if it was more than you wanted.
Being a smart aleck - the photon, particle, and wave are all human-generated models of a natural physical phenomena, namely electro-magnetic radiation (to use the wave model term). None of the models perfectly explains the phenomena in all circumstances by itself. The photon model is really an attempt to combine the particle and wave models. The wave model generally works well in aggregate and continuous situations; a shift to the photon model is usually needed in discrete and small scale situations. But even these rules are not 100%!. The universe is not forced to obey human concepts as to how it should work. Nonetheless, the universe does appear to be orderly and rational.
yours in scientific philosophy
Fred W
Ya'll are talking way over my head, proton's, electron's, neutron's, gamma ray's, sorry if I left anything out! I just don't see how storing them (dcc loco's) for a few years would change anything, just my opinion. I have seen DCC loco's stored in locked display cases in a hobby store for the past 4 years, his prices are way too high, that's why they're still there. From reading this thread, does from what ya'll are saying, these particular loco's may never run because some kind of radioactive phenomenon has destroyed the chip or circuitry board?
I would think the only time the chip or decoder would be in jeopardy was if I took the shell off the loco, and began touching the various soldered components on the board, I may create my own dilemma if I have a static charge in my own body, in other words I would not open my computer tower and install a video or sound card, just as examples, or touch any component without grounding myself out first to discharge static. I would think the same would apply to the card in my Loco, or am I, LOL, LOCO ?
*Digs up Fallout manual Cold war era.
Aha. So I gotta put a foot of sandbagged dirt on top of a tin shield on my roof?
Ive had my QSI engines for years, they aint quit yet.
Now Ive had cheap USB thumb drives die after being stored more than a few months.