shaggy wrote: This is the first time I have heard about what you tell me. Do you know this from experiance? Know folks who have had that happen? Please tell me more about your sorces. Thank you for your reply.Shaggy
This is the first time I have heard about what you tell me. Do you know this from experiance? Know folks who have had that happen? Please tell me more about your sorces. Thank you for your reply.
Shaggy
It is apparant that you haven't been reading these forums too long or you would have been aware of the problems with MRC decoders. In my experience they should be more accurately marketed as instant smoke generators.
My first experience with MRC decoders was with their very first attempt at making them. As a special promotion, they offered a Walthers Trainline diesel locomotive with a decoder already installed and a package of three additional decoders at a significant discount, in the days when other brands of decoders were priced at over $50 each. The decoder in the locomotive was dead on arrival, and two out of three of the additional pack were also defective; so in effect I wound up paying over $150 for one good decoder and a locomotive that ran so poorly that I gave it away.
Several years later, a fellow club member began buying MRC sound decoders. Only one out of approximatley 10 decoders is still operating. All the others have gone up in smoke or were defective right out of the package; but he kept on buying them "because they're cheap."
Yes, they sell them at a cheap price because they are very cheaply made. Their Prodigy Advanced DCC systems are good products, but the decoders are not.
I have often wondered by MRC runs the risk of sullying their reputation of producing some of the best power packs on the market by also making such horrible DCC products.
I did call MRC before posting the questions and I guess I got what I expected. I found that MRC is a small company with only one person to talk to about tech stuff and was not about to say anything bad about MRC. They do not use caps in their decoders other wise he was not very helpful.
I have found info on what I am attempting to do. I need to do some R & D so I should have something to report in about two weeks, I have to get the stuff together to try a few things, Stay tuned.
I am about to add MRC 1658 sound decoders to 5 N scale Kato EMD F3's. I have heard some bad things about them, resetting, stopping and starting, track and wheels need to be super clean (not allways posible on a club layout), ect.... I am looking into adding capacitors to them to help them resist the little contact issues to help cary them through to good contact and so on.
Questions;
Do I put the cap on the input side which can be either AC OR DC voltage?
Do I put the cap on the motor side where it may cary the motor through but will it keep power to the decoder so it will contiue its set coarse and not reset or cause the loco to stop.
What size capacitor do I use knowing space is limited but I am not affraid to use my trusting Dreamel?
Thoughts?
Shaggy--Hagerstown,MD