I've been using TCS BEMF-capable drop-ins for the engines where they are supported, but I also need to buy some wired decoders for a number of engines where no drop-ins are available. In doing a search on-line I ran across some admittedly old but interesting information about the low speed capabilities of some BEMF decoders. Apparently the way it's implemented can have a difference.
http://tonystrains.com/technews/stef_load_comp.htm
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32457&start=0 (especially Nigelcliffe's comments about halfway down)
I happened to be looking at the Silver Mini, DZ125, and the TCS Z2. Can anyone comment on their experience with this particular issue and any of these decoders? Is there a brand (besides Zimo which is like unobtanium here) which has superior low speed performance with the typical engines used in many N scale locos?
I really enjoy the Digtrax DN163 series w/BEMF I use in my Kato engines. I think a lot has to do with the engine (drive mech) themselves. I burned up a couple TCSs in my Atlas MP15s and finally got a digitrax decoder. Though is continues to run, the slow speeds are not all that great (jumpy). When I get some time someday I plan to do what I can to make those MP15s run better.
Peter
Peter, does that mean you are still using TCS in the MP15 and it runs jumpy, or that you put the DN163 in there and it's doing that? How do the Katos run at low speed with the 163?
How did the TCSes burn up?
Sorry I wasn't more clear... I have the digitrax in one of the MP15s and a TCS in the other. Both are jumpy at slow speeds though the digitrax is better. My theory on the TCSs is that the MP15s were running so poorly that the extra load exceeded the amp rating of the decoder. Two of them smoked, TCS replaced them. I haven't run the two locos much since for fear of smoking them. I will say that the environment is a bit on the cool side (50s lower 60 degree range. But that never hurt the Katos.
The Katos (4 SD70s and a FP40) run smooth as silk, they always have. Even with an MRC sound decoder in them but I perfer the digitrax(no sound).
Hope that helps,
The VERY best? Zimo or CT Electronik, but they are NOT cheap. In HO, it seems to me the TCS decoders with BEMF are smoother than the DIgitrax, same should be true in N scale, it's the same code in the same CPU. TCS decoders have had BEMF for a few years now, but they didn;t originally, so if you have an old one, it may not have BEMF and therefore would not run as smoothly at low speeds. If the loco was 'jumping' it probably had a bind in the mechanism that the BEMF was trying to compensate for, or some other issue. I can't imagine a Kato motor drawing enough current to fry the decoder, even if you held the armature from spinning.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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