Hi!
The old layout is history, the new layout is designed, the initial DCC units (Digitrax) are purchased, and the room is now being prepped to begin construction. Soooo, to give me a break as time permits, I thought it was time to start buying some decoders. As I have a lot of them, and they are among my favorites, I want to start with the Stewart F3s / F7s (with Kato drives) and the Stewart FTs (with Stewart drives) for my initial decoder installations.
I've looked at NCE, Digitrax, and TCS decoders and have no clue as to what is "best" for me. Obviously "best" is a subjective term, and to me includes Quality, Ease of Install, Durability, Availability, & Cost.
All of which comes down to my questions... What decoders do you have in your Stewart F type locos, and what do you think of them?
Thank you all,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Mobilman,
I have a Lenz Gold Series "JST" decoder in a Stewart FT and it works just terrific. It has extremely good BEMF and absolutely crawls on speed step 001. They're not inexpensive though.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I put a TCS T1 in the one F7 I had, if I get any more I'd probably just use the NCE D13SRJ. Now that my equipment is on the way, I'm going to order a TCS T1 for my P2K GP-7 just to try it out - the ones I had before were before they had Back-EMF in them. Depending on if it really runs that much better than the NCE, enough to justify the price difference, I'll either start using more TCS decoders or just go back to my tried and true D13SRJ, seeing as how they are only $12 each.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I have Digitrax DH163/165 series & TCS T4X series decoders in most of my F's. I have an ABA set of older Stewart F's(not DCC Ready) that are 'hard wired' with TCS T4X decoders. IIRC, the newer Stewart F's have a NMRA 8 pin socket. Most decoders are now 9 pin JST, so you may need to buy the NMRA to JST 'harness' to make the connection. I also picked up some NCE D13SRJ decoders, but have not installed them. A friend has been using them and really likes them. I see Randy likes them too, sounds good to me - Good luck with your decoder installs!
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin