I am interested in purchasing my first "Steam" loco and had my eye on the Backman Spectrum Series 4-8-2 heavy mountain with Vanderbilt tender, because the tender has "all wheel pickup".
I have seen some posts where other guys have had challenges with the DCC decoding and have even had to send their loco's to Digitrax for assistance.
Has anyone seen or heard of this......just looking for a little feedback prior to making my first "STEAM" purchase.
I do like this type of loco as I am working on a B&O theme.
thanx in advance for the advice,
B&O Bradley
Bradley,
I am not sure what 'posts' you are referring to. The Bachmann Spectrum line of steamers usually are quite easy to add a decoder to. I have 4 Bachmann Spectrum steamers and it was just a matter of plugging the decoder into the socket in the tender. There have been some suggestions to remove the RF capacitors, but I have never had any issue with adding/programming Soundtraxx decoders. I have heard nothing about sending an engine to Digitrax(I am assuming you are planningto use a Digitrax decoder). Could you provide more information?
There have been issues with some manufacturers of sound decoders early on due to the large 'keep alive' capacitors would suck the programming signal and one could not set the address on the programming track. I have an Athearn Genesis MP15AC(MRC sound decoder) that I had to program on the main to get the address into it. It would not program on the programming track(even with a booster).
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
The gentleman didn't specify but the only Spectrum 4-8-2 Mountain that can be found on Bachmann's website is the N scale version.It comes with factory installed decoder.I have one and like it.Though not impressive,it runs nice and has accepted its new adress easily.Considering the price,it's a nice unit.