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Has anyone tried these units?

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  • Member since
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  • From: AU
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Has anyone tried these units?
Posted by xdford on Monday, June 11, 2012 7:50 AM

HI All,

 

 I have a fairly reasonable knowledge base for many things in model railroading but not DCC. Has anyone tried these chips...

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Uhlenbrock-75300-Andi-decoder-6-pin-Ho-O-model-trains-/221005899085?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item3374fa654d#ht_1517wt_1396...

 and if so your impression please? I only run DC myself but I suppose I have to come into the 21st Century if my club goes ahead with more DCC purchases but I would want something I can run on my own layout!

TIA

 

Trevor

 

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Posted by tstage on Monday, June 11, 2012 7:54 AM

Trevor,

Do they have a manual that you can download and look at?  If not, I would stick with a better known manufacturer.  If you are only needing a motor decoder, NCE, TCS, Lenz, and Digitrax are good choices.  You'll probably also save on postage.

Tom

https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling

Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.

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Posted by cacole on Monday, June 11, 2012 7:58 AM

I know of no major DCC dealer in the U.S. who sells this brand.  The biggest question to me would be whether it is NMRA compliant and would work with Digitrax, Lenz, NCE, CVP, or other U.S. DCC system.  The seller is in Australia and doesn't mention this.

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Posted by rrinker on Monday, June 11, 2012 8:12 AM

 Trying to find information on these is not easy. Even searchign for the part number doesn't turn up much. Uhlenbrock seems to like to hide and doesn't have a big presence liek the other major DCC makers.

 What strikes me is the askign price. It seems low - most of the German brand decoders are significantly more expensive, so either this model has limited features, or there is somethign the seller is not telling us.

 Not sure how much Trevor would saveon shippigng getting a US decoder - he's in Australia Big Smile

However - NCE seems to have a strong presence in Oz. Dunno what the goign rate there is, but her,e the D13SRJ decoders from NCE are available for $12 each in a 10 pack. About the lowest cost way to outfit a fleet of locos with DCC. It's a big up-front outlay, but you get 10 decoders for that. They run fine on DC. ABout the only thing they fall short on is if you model modern era diesels with ditch lights and flashign beacons, you'd need a decoder with more functions for all the lights.

                    --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by cacole on Monday, June 11, 2012 8:20 AM

I found a web site in English for the Uhlenbrock company, but it appears to have last been updated in 2004.

http://www.rjftrains.com/intellibox/uhlenbrock.htm 

A Uhlenbrock web site in German that describes their Intellisound decoder mentions that it is for use with a Marklin DCC system, which I believe is proprietary.

http://www.uhlenbrock.de/INTERN/%3ADAVID/ARCHIVE/WWW/INTERN/Produkte/LocoSnd/is/INDEX.HTM 

Their documentation repeatedly mentions the SUSI (Serial User Standard Interface) protocol, which has not yet been adopted for use in the U.S. by any of our NMRA DCC compliant systems.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about SUSI:  

http://www.dccwiki.com/SUSI 

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Posted by tstage on Monday, June 11, 2012 8:48 AM

rrinker

Not sure how much Trevor would saveon shippigng getting a US decoder - he's in Australia Big Smile

Oops! Dunce  Completely missed that one, Randy. Embarrassed

Tom

https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling

Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.

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Posted by Train Modeler on Monday, June 11, 2012 9:10 AM

Not that I know of.  Warranty is a big deal when installing decoders for the first time, actually all the time.

 

Richard

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Posted by Gromitt on Monday, June 11, 2012 11:47 AM

Uhlenbrock 75300 is an older decoder for Märklin Motorola format, it can not do DCC.

 

Uhlenbrock has a homepage, but it's only in German.

https://www.uhlenbrock.de/intern/index.htm

 

/stefan

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Posted by xdford on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 4:42 AM

HI All and thank yo for all your replies...

Regards from Oz

Trevor

 

 

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Posted by Truck on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 10:19 PM

I would not want to buy a used decoder on Ebay anyway. Not worth the gamble.

Take some of the suggetions from other replies, stick to common name brands.

                                                                                   Truck.

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Posted by hobo9941 on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 12:33 PM

When in doubt, DON"T!  Burma Shave.

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