Yes Tom, the front A unit and the B are tethered the trailing A unit is completely separate and just connects with couplers. It has a fully independent decoder in it.
I would agree that out of the box they are a bit loud, with all 3 blasting along, but little boys like loud, so for the time being I have not lowered the volume. The sound roster has grown a little in the last weeks as I installed an inexpensive MRC sound decoder in Crispy's new GP. For all the criticism of these decoders, they are not bad and on sale a great price.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Simon,
I got hooked on the same sale back in November and got one of their NYC F3 A-Bs. Although I initially had a problem with the front truck feeders binding on the A-unit and causing it derail around right-hand turns, PCM did right and fixed it. The only thing that I'm disappointed in (and that I discovered after I bought it) was that the NYC F3s never had a lower headlight. I'm hoping to one day figure out how to rectify that. A small portion of the NYC lightning stripe side panel has also delaminated slightly.
Anyway, when my F3s came, the A- and B-units (powered) were already MUed together via the tethered cable. So, all I did was hook them together, gave them a normal "non-consisting" address and both of them worked together beautifully from the getgo.
Simon, are there two connections to the central B-unit from each A-unit (front and back) or only one, for the front A-unit. From your description, it sounds like the trailing A-unit is separate and not tethered at all to the B-unit?
I also found that 25% sound was plenty loud enough with the ESU Loksound decoder(s). I know that both units are powered. However, I can't remember if both units also have sound, or whether it's just in the B-unit.
Congrats, Simon, on the newest addition to your roster. How do your boys like 'em?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
simon1966 wrote:I was unable to resist the recent firesale on the PCM F3 ABA units and just recieved my 3 ESU Loksound equipped locos. This is the first time I have had such a lash up and wonder about the best way to configure the units. Would it be best to simply configure all with the same long address, or to run them with seperate address and then run them as a consist?
If you are going to use them as a three unit set, it is better to reverse the direction on the rear A unit and configure them as a set. If you want to remove the rear A unit occasionally and run the AB set only, then I would use two separate addresses so the rear A unit can be dropped off quickly if you want to remove it or use it on some other train. It just depends on how you will be using them.
I have this set also and have been playing around with some of the features. When you have the Loksound programmer, you can do almost any configuration on the set without too much trouble.