Gilligan
I would call Toneys and ask the same question. I dont think they would program it for you. They may for a fee. They are the ones with the answer to your questions.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
I was looking at getting a couple blueline steamers myself and i run dcc. I was thinking of getting them through Tony's trains exchange and it seems they offer the loco with a decoder installed for extra cost or just the loco how you would get it from blueline. So does that mean they put in their own two function decoder scrapping what it originally came with and i wont have such issues. Im not very Dcc savy yet so bear with me.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
locoi1sa wrote: Could this be one of those Chevy vs Ford type arguments? Pete
Could this be one of those Chevy vs Ford type arguments?
Chevy Vs. Ford? Uggghh. 2 losers. Try Toyota Vs. Honda...a True American Made Car.
Could this be one of those Chevy vs Ford type arguments? Some people make things harder than they need to be.
I bought a Blueline Steamer and love it. I will buy more when they get off thier butts and start producing them. I hope the I1sa will be available with the blueline or QSI decoder and not that Loksound that you cant hear the whistle unless your inside the tender but the bell you can hear across the street. And we can realy use a Belpair boilered 2-8-0 like an H9 or H10.
New Haven I-5 wrote: Thanks for the info! If i'm gonna get ANY Sound & DCC products, I will have to shop at the $^#&@* eBay!
Hey thats where I bought my Paragon BLI SD40-2. $130 dollars almost brand new. Compare that to retail $250. I got a great deal and I like the loco.
- Luke
Modeling the Southern Pacific in the 1960's-1980's
jfugate wrote: Blueline locos ... great idea (make the loco cheaper by cutting out the motor decoder and just putting in a sound decoder). Not so great in practice.The big problem with the Blueline series is they only come with a sound decoder. You have to buy a motor decoder yourself to run them on DCC. Now you have two decoders in one loco, with a few configuration variables (CVs) that overlap, so the NMRA decoder specs enable a decoder locking mechanism. But once you lock the decoders, you can't program CV19 any longer to put the loco into a decoder consist. What a pain! I discuss the problem and a possible solution here. I also find the Blueline diesels only run about as good as a Blue Box Athearn. Passible, but not great like a Kato or Atlas.As it came, the volume on all the extra sounds (air pump, etc.) was so loud I could not hear the prime mover sound until I lowered the volume on all the extra sounds significantly. Then the prime mover sound was only okay, but not great. Finally, the diesel horn on my Blueline SD9 is pretty poor. It has a funny, unrealistic drop-off sound at the end of the blast and I can't get rid of it, no matter how much I play with the settings. Long story short, I won't be getting any more Blueline diesels very soon, and I will be replacing the sound decoder in my SD9 Blueline with a diesel sound decoder that's also got motor control in it. Dual decoder headaches just aren't worth it to me.
Blueline locos ... great idea (make the loco cheaper by cutting out the motor decoder and just putting in a sound decoder). Not so great in practice.
The big problem with the Blueline series is they only come with a sound decoder. You have to buy a motor decoder yourself to run them on DCC. Now you have two decoders in one loco, with a few configuration variables (CVs) that overlap, so the NMRA decoder specs enable a decoder locking mechanism. But once you lock the decoders, you can't program CV19 any longer to put the loco into a decoder consist. What a pain! I discuss the problem and a possible solution here.
I also find the Blueline diesels only run about as good as a Blue Box Athearn. Passible, but not great like a Kato or Atlas.
As it came, the volume on all the extra sounds (air pump, etc.) was so loud I could not hear the prime mover sound until I lowered the volume on all the extra sounds significantly. Then the prime mover sound was only okay, but not great.
Finally, the diesel horn on my Blueline SD9 is pretty poor. It has a funny, unrealistic drop-off sound at the end of the blast and I can't get rid of it, no matter how much I play with the settings.
Long story short, I won't be getting any more Blueline diesels very soon, and I will be replacing the sound decoder in my SD9 Blueline with a diesel sound decoder that's also got motor control in it. Dual decoder headaches just aren't worth it to me.
Great user review Joe. I've got a BLI paragon SD40-2 with QSI sound. While the sound is fantastic, it runs similar to an Athearn Blue Box. Nice comparison
Although I do find myself running this loco quite a bit as I do enjoy the paintjob and sound quality which is second to none.
New Haven I-5 wrote: I have been looking at Broadway Limited's Blueline Series. How do you use the sound?
The same as with any other sound decoder -- function keys on your DCC controller for horn/whistle, bell, etc. The documentation that comes with the engines lists the available functions. The sounds are rather generic, IMHO, and are not as good as the QSI, Tsunami, or Digitrax SoundFX decoders.
Operationally, they run well if you put a good motor control decoder into them, but as Joe Fugate has explained they are a nightmare to program and they cannot be consisted with other brands/models without losing control over the sounds.
If you are full DCC user, then Blueline isnt for you.
One day BLI decided that QSI is out and they needed to re-run all of thier products with the fancy, complicated and heart failure inducing Blueline to get to the DC users.
The amount of stickies and piles of questions on thier forums indicate that the Blueline isnt the best product.
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon