With frequent trips to Paris for work, I have long admired the TGVs in France. I would like to purchase a Jouef TGV with DCC and Sound - but will that work on a U.S. layout with our electrical current and the Digitrax system?
DCC is DCC. As long as this isn't a 3 rail Marklin AC loco, it will work just fine on Digitrax or any other DCC system.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thank you Randy! So many other electrical things are incompatible between the U.S and Europe - so I am happy to learn that the systems should work on a two rail system with Digitrax!
That's the beauty of a real standard. All my sound locos use ESU Loksound, a German company. A fried of mine uses mostly Lenz and some other European decoder in his tiny scarcthbuilt N scale locos, but both of us run our layouts with Digitrax. Lenz from Germany is the one who provided the basis for the DCC standard.
That's part of the reason I am on the fence over these newer direct radio systems. There is no standard. It's like the pre-DCC days of command controol - there were many different systems on the market, and for the most part, each was incompatible with the other. Every single one of those manufacturers with the exception of CVP is now gone. CVP survived because they quickly came out with a DCC system so instead of their proprietary system, they now have a standard DCC system to sell.
The other reasoon is that I now find myself in the position of those with fleets of wuality locos runnign DC - cost to convert them all. It's different if a lot of your locos are not worth converting to DCC or some other system, but I've purged those from my coollection a long time ago. Removing DCC and switching to direct radio would be cost prohibitive - and I see very little if any gain in doing so. DCC provides all the features I need to run my trains, and it's a standard so I can take my locos to any other DCC layout and run them. Plus if I were to make such an investment - what happens if the system I chose ends up orphaned when the manufacturer calls it quits? Now I have to do it all over again - so until there is a standard for direct radio I'm not about to even enterain the thought of converting.
Green Train Jouef TGV with DCC and Sound
Jouef TGV with DCC and Sound
Walid
I have purchased decoder equipped locomotives from the UK and they operate just fine in the US. I will also say the Bachmann locomotives offered in Europe are far superior to what they offer as their standard line locomotives here.
Thx everyone! I liked the looks of the TGVs so much, I bought both a Mehano and a Jouef model - figuring at least I could display them! lol But now that I joined a model railroad club and we are building a large layout, I figured, why not see them run? Thanks to your help, I will now have two decoders installed in the locomotives in Europe, and will purchase the DCC-Sound version TGV I mentioned. Your assistance is very much appreciated!
I am a newbie here - so please pardon my inexperience. In the model railroad business, sometime you just have to jump at opportunities before you fully understand things - because that opportunity may not come again.So I had European decoders installed in two European 2-rail locomotives. As the shopkeeper handed them to me, in broken English he said "three" and "three". I never quite understood what he was trying to tell me. In your best guess, was he most likely talking about an address? Is there a base address that can be changed? Do I need to ask for a manual or online location in order to program and run the locomotives - or is there some kind of universal way to program them - and to operate the various functions? Thank you for any assistance you can provide.
Probably the address, the standard for a fresh decoder is to have the address at 3 (though I seem to recall something about European decoders using 1 or maybe I am confusing that with function mappings).
Just stick the loco oon the program track and read the address. That's the easiest thing to do - and also a good sanity check in case it was miswired. If you cna read the address, either run it on that address or set it to whatever you want it to be.
Thanks again Randy. I am completely new at DCC and have not run a train yet. Isn't there a "manual" or info that would show what number to push for each sound? Or is that pretty much standard? Or do I just push buttons to find out what sound I get? lol
Thx for bearing with the questions. I could probably figure it out myself, but thought I would ask because I won't be home to get the chance to check anything out with the locos before I go back to the Paris train shop.
When it comes to sound decoders, there USUALLY is an instruction manual supplied with the loco if it comes factory equipped that will tell you what function is what sound.For something installed by someone, it's up to the installer to tell you how they set up the decoder.
For North American locos, the de facto standard (but not an NMRA requirement) is F0 for the headlight, F1 for bell, and F2 for horn/whistle. Many European decoders use F1 for the whistle/horn because in most cases they don't have bells on the locos. Anything beyond that can really be a free for all. Depending on the decoder, the functions can be remapped (in the case of Loksound, in ANY possibly combination, no restrictions) so that you can configure all your locos to work the same instead of trying to remember that on this one it's F5 for the brake and on that other one it's F7.