Noticed the brass hybrid J3a hudsons and ATSF 2-8-2s will have Paragon 4 decoders...hopefully they have better QC for those. I personally wasent a fan of the p3 sound, so I hope they change it up once again.
Update: New P4 feature page: https://www.broadway-limited.com/paragon4-2.aspx
It seems like the same features besides standardizing built in Go pack, and "switcher mode"
Charles
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Modeling the PRR & NYC in HO
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@trainman440
Instagram (where I share projects!): https://www.instagram.com/trainman440
Maybe BLI finally conceded that the P3 decoders were a bust and a re-design was paramount to them moving forward. Yes, hopefully the P4 will turn out to be more reliable than their older sibling.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Oh joy, another version 1.0 with all that implies. Hopefully not with stuff being alpha-tested on the end-using community again.
I welcome the development... but with fingers crossed for luck.
There's times I wished Broadway would "fess up" and let the customers know what problems they're dealing with ala Jason Shron at Rapido.
I've had awful luck with my P3 locomotives and — in BLI's defense — they have made a great effort at making things right through the service department and I give them credit with that.
The latest revision (H) which has the "Go-pack" plug on the board is probably as far as they can go with that architecture.
I sure hope they redesigned the board from the ground-up. I imagine many of the sound files will be the same unless they spent some time making new recordings, which they sometimes do. My nephew accompanied one of their people here in Cleveland while making some recordings of Alco 244s.
We shall see
Regards, Ed
I have several BLI locomotives, steam and diesel, that are Paragon models, factory equipped with QSI Quantum sound decoders. They can be a bit wonky, especially on the diesels with lighting and consisting. But, overall, performance is acceptable.
I have two Paragon 2 locomotives with a factory installed proprietary decoder from BLI. Both of these locomotives are steam, and the sound and overall performance are fine.
I have avoided the Paragon 3 locomotives because of all the complaints that I have read about performance faults.
So, when I read about Paragon 4, I just figure that it is best to sit back and let others take their chances before I dare buy one.
Rich
Alton Junction
I can't seem to find the discusion about BLI moters being 3 pole and causing problems with Paragon 3 decoders? I contacted BLI about P4 motors and got this back quite quickly;
Is this a good thing?
BumpyJack68 I can't seem to find the discusion about BLI moters being 3 pole and causing problems with Paragon 3 decoders? I contacted BLI about P4 motors and got this back quite quickly; Info 11:05 AM (2 hours ago) to me Hello Jack, "Paragon 4 engines have a 5-pole varistor motor in them." What the heck is varistor you ask? https://kinmoremotor.com/article/motor-basics/what-is-varistor/ Is this a good thing?
5 pole motors are better than 3 pole. 3 pole motors CAN be good, but the specific ones they used in their par3 models drew too much current, causing the decoder to malfuction.
BLI used to use 5 pole motors before paragon3, for some reason they chose to cheapen out during paragon 3 from the very first loco (PRR L1s) to the very last. Even though from the beginning people were already having issues.