Just got my new issue of Model Railroad News today and they have a review of the new Bachmann On30 2-6-6-2 with Tsunami sound. Under plain DC - it goes 22.8 smph. Wide open on DCC it only goes 9.2 smph. They don't indicate which DCC system was used, but the huge difference in speed is interesting in light of recent posts. Both tests were with the Tsunami decoder version - so the DC speed is using the decoder in analog conversion mode, NOT with the decoder bypassed.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker Just got my new issue of Model Railroad News today and they have a review of the new Bachmann On30 2-6-6-2 with Tsunami sound. Under plain DC - it goes 22.8 smph. Wide open on DCC it only goes 9.2 smph. They don't indicate which DCC system was used, but the huge difference in speed is interesting in light of recent posts. Both tests were with the Tsunami decoder version - so the DC speed is using the decoder in analog conversion mode, NOT with the decoder bypassed. --Randy
RECALL THE DECODERS!!!!!!!!!
I think their review is a mistake -- perhaps it should be 19.2 smph with DCC. One of our club members has one of these that he runs on our portable HO modular layout that uses CVP's EasyDCC, and it certainly runs much faster than 9.2 smph.
I know with my 2-10-0 with the Spectrum version of Tsunami, I had a hard time getting the CVs set to get things just the way I wanted. It does act strangely sometimes, I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't tweak some CV's to get it to go faster...that is, I don't think the decoders are faulty, but the way they come from the factory isn't the way most decoders are set up.
Yes, it is quite funny how the B-mann Tsunami´s are set up from the factory. My HO 4-6-0 couldn´t be function-remapped or have any advanced changes made until I contacted the good people at Soundtraxx, they told me to set CV 30 to 0?!? And what do you know, it worked.
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BTW if you go back to the MRN review, it says that the engine topped out at 22.8 scale MPH on DC - but note that it was at 15.4 volts. At 12 volts, which is what most folks would be using, it's max speed was 11.6 MPH, pretty close to the 9.2 MPH top speed under DCC. (Also under DC the engine doesn't start moving til 8.6 volts.)
Pete Birdsong notes in his review that the 20 MPH stop speed "was high for engines like this, which generally operated under 10 MPH...."
Well we've said that all the time - it really doesn't need to go that fast. However, when the speed doesn;t vary for 10 speed steps, there's something wierd going on.