Tom, many people have the same complaint about the MRC's in the Athearn Challenger and Big boy. I was given a new BB because the buyer was annoyed with how poorly it ran. I played with it some, and quickly decided the decoder had to go.
Changing mine to a Tsunami Heavy Steam decoder was somewhat time-consuming but not too difficult; however, I have been doing electronic work for a long time. I would not recommend it for anyone without some wiring experience.
The first thing is to recognize that you will be giving up the remote control. There is no way to preserve that feature with a different decoder.
Behind the front tender wall, there is a U-shaped interface board. This board has all the tender pickup wires and interface cable wires terminated on it. I took out everything in the tender except this board and the speaker. I made a drawing of the board so I knew which set of eyelets were for R and L pickups from both tender and the interface cable, and which for motor and lamp leads from the interface cable. Hooking up a sound decoder was then easy. Don't confuse motor and pickup leads or you will likely smoke the decoder. The lines on the board are close, so check your soldering carefully. The last thing was to improvise a support for the backup lamp.
Much better slow-speed operation and sound.
Hal
Hi Hal!.could not help but see u bought Athern BB and replaced MRC decoder...I bought their Challanger Sat and put on my layout yesterday, Sunday 29 March. Amyway, i'm very dissapointed with the performance of this loco...jerky.looses power. etc etc...i did try on test track at LHS when i purchased BUT, I've had issues with Athern diesels and was reluctant to purchase Athern steam based upon my past experience..Price was too good to pass up..
NOW my question. should i bring back to LHS or replace decoder? I'm not best at doing replacments on decoders and need to know how hard a project it was when you replaced yours in BB?..did you keep speaker etc and just replace decoder?.. any help will be greatly appreciated...thanks Tom
Archie, you didn't say whether you bought a new or used Trix. Until about 3-4 years ago, the Big Boy did not have DCC/sound. I purposely sought out an older but unused one on Ebay so I could save a few bucks for a Tsunami decoder to put in it; I don't like the Loksound steam sound. When I later bought a Mikado, I pulled the 2.0 Loksound out and replaced it with a Tsunami. I was able to reprogram that 2.0 as a diesel unit. I obtained an Athearn Big Boy which looked good but did not run well, so out came the MRC and in went another Tsunami - end of problem.
The Trix Big Boy is, in my opinion, a very well made engine with excellent slow speed performance and electrical pickup. It is one of the best several out of 30 or so BLI's, P2K Heritage, Athearn and other steamers I have.
As Tom does, I am pretty sure they were all marketed for N. Americans who would be operating in DCC. The packaging should allude to DCC or to a Loksound decoder v. 3.0 or something of that nature.
Archie,
I have a couple of Trix 2-8-2 Mikes. They both came with a Loksound 2.0 (older) sound decoder installed in them. The Trix BB should be the same. Other than the fixed whistle, I've been very happy with the Loksound chuff and it's low speed operation.
Archie, I hope you got your BB at a good price.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Do these wonderful engines come ready to run on DCC? Having bought one at a train show, I was so excited of the purchase, I forgot to ask. Thank you to all who answer.
Archie