Hi folks. Just upgraded to a brand new NCE DCC system with BLI SW locomotive HO scale. I just relocated to the Midwest too and everything is in storage. My oldest parts of my layout were a bear to take apart and move. Newest piece was a breeze. Willing to rebuild. I have Atlas snap switches and a PECO electrofrog switch on the oldest part. PECO insulfrog on newest part. Questions: which switches could cause me the worst trouble? What should I watch out for as a first timer? Any compatibility issues between system and loco? Share your thought please.
The first thing that comes to mind is, are any turnouts equipped with plastic frogs?
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
brakeman618Any compatibility issues between system and loco?
All BLI Paragon 2 locomotives have the following problem described here:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/t/248855.aspx
The condensed version is there are about 36 DCC long addresses (3 or 4 digits) that when used cause the locomotive to only operate in reverse. BLI has no idea why this happens, but it happens on all DCC systems as far as we can tell.
Read this carefully, it will explain turnouts and DCC to you:
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches.htm
Unless there is some need foreseen to operate from time to time on DC, you're best off finding the CV to set it so that the decoder responds only to DCC commands. That prevents strange behvior in case of shorts and/or voltage spikes. You can always restore DC op capability if that is needed.
If you're not planning to try JMRI/DecoderPro right away, start a notebook to write your custom DCC CV settings down as you make them. That way you can restore them to the loco if you ever need to reset the decoder.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL