jbinkley60The unit runs smoothly. Out of the box it has a fairly linear speed curve. Without the CV readback working I couldn't easily fire up JMRI to do some adjustements and have a little more control at the low end. Overall a nice unit. I applaud Athearn with the new Tsunami decoders. At some point in the near future I'll invest ion a Power Pax unit to allow CV readbacks. If it wasn't for this issue and the missing ditchlights, I'd give this unit an excellent rating. But I'll have to rate it behind the Atlas Gold units but can still recommend it as a solid addition to your roster.
I have no trouble reading back the CV values using JMRI via my PR3. I use the power supply that came with my Zephyr to power my PR3 and have no problems with QSI or Tsunami decoders, either reading or writing the CVs.
Have you tried the PR3?
Vernon
Vernon in Central Indiana
I guess Im the luckiest guy in the world. I am new to DCC. I decided to finally switch over to DCC about 3 months ago. I've got two Athearn Genesis F3AB sets, a BLI Blue Line Big Boy, Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2, a Proto 2000 GP-7, Proto 1000 RS-2, all with sound and DCC, so I've got a good cross section of whats available. The QSI and Tsunami's are great,but they cost twice what a MRC would cost. Generally speaking, if something is twice the price its going to be better.Its like comparing a BMW to a Yugo and complaining that the Yugo is inferior.? I still feel for all you guys that good bad ones, as I know what its like to purchase items that dont work. When you pay your money, you deserve a product that works. Fortunetly for me, my MRC equiped F's and Proto RS2 sound fine to me and have been run for many hours with NO problems. Also, when I decided to switch to DCC, I went with the MRC Prodigy Advanced Squared. Couldnt be happier. The system is easy to use, and packed with features. I've programmed all my locos with little trouble, and Im having the time of my life playing with my trains.
Vernon/IN jbinkley60The unit runs smoothly. Out of the box it has a fairly linear speed curve. Without the CV readback working I couldn't easily fire up JMRI to do some adjustements and have a little more control at the low end. Overall a nice unit. I applaud Athearn with the new Tsunami decoders. At some point in the near future I'll invest ion a Power Pax unit to allow CV readbacks. If it wasn't for this issue and the missing ditchlights, I'd give this unit an excellent rating. But I'll have to rate it behind the Atlas Gold units but can still recommend it as a solid addition to your roster. I have no trouble reading back the CV values using JMRI via my PR3. I use the power supply that came with my Zephyr to power my PR3 and have no problems with QSI or Tsunami decoders, either reading or writing the CVs. Have you tried the PR3? Vernon
I tried the PR3 and no luck either. Occassionally I'd get a partial attempt. I could tell it was trying but no luck. I too have never had a problem up until now. I've programmed many QSI and other sound decoders with my Super Chief and PR3. I went ahead and ordered a Power Pax from Tony's. We'll see if it resolves he issue.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
jbinkley60 Vernon/IN jbinkley60The unit runs smoothly. Out of the box it has a fairly linear speed curve. Without the CV readback working I couldn't easily fire up JMRI to do some adjustements and have a little more control at the low end. Overall a nice unit. I applaud Athearn with the new Tsunami decoders. At some point in the near future I'll invest ion a Power Pax unit to allow CV readbacks. If it wasn't for this issue and the missing ditchlights, I'd give this unit an excellent rating. But I'll have to rate it behind the Atlas Gold units but can still recommend it as a solid addition to your roster. I have no trouble reading back the CV values using JMRI via my PR3. I use the power supply that came with my Zephyr to power my PR3 and have no problems with QSI or Tsunami decoders, either reading or writing the CVs. Have you tried the PR3? Vernon I tried the PR3 and no luck either. Occassionally I'd get a partial attempt. I could tell it was trying but no luck. I too have never had a problem up until now. I've programmed many QSI and other sound decoders with my Super Chief and PR3. I went ahead and ordered a Power Pax from Tony's. We'll see if it resolves he issue.
After wrestling with this some more, I was able to get the PR3 to read CVs properly. Still no luck though with the Super Chief system. Anyway, after adjusting the speed tables and tweaking a few other CVs, I got the right performance I was looking for at the low end. I am warming up to this unit more and more. Again, the Tsunamis are a huge improvement over the MRC decoders and I won't be hesitant in the future to buy Genesis sound units with them. Now Athearn needs to rerelease the Genesis SD60s in Norfolk Southern, that were recalled earlier this year.
jbinkley60 jbinkley60 Vernon/IN jbinkley60The unit runs smoothly. Out of the box it has a fairly linear speed curve. Without the CV readback working I couldn't easily fire up JMRI to do some adjustements and have a little more control at the low end. Overall a nice unit. I applaud Athearn with the new Tsunami decoders. At some point in the near future I'll invest ion a Power Pax unit to allow CV readbacks. If it wasn't for this issue and the missing ditchlights, I'd give this unit an excellent rating. But I'll have to rate it behind the Atlas Gold units but can still recommend it as a solid addition to your roster. I have no trouble reading back the CV values using JMRI via my PR3. I use the power supply that came with my Zephyr to power my PR3 and have no problems with QSI or Tsunami decoders, either reading or writing the CVs. Have you tried the PR3? Vernon I tried the PR3 and no luck either. Occassionally I'd get a partial attempt. I could tell it was trying but no luck. I too have never had a problem up until now. I've programmed many QSI and other sound decoders with my Super Chief and PR3. I went ahead and ordered a Power Pax from Tony's. We'll see if it resolves he issue. After wrestling with this some more, I was able to get the PR3 to read CVs properly. Still no luck though with the Super Chief system. Anyway, after adjusting the speed tables and tweaking a few other CVs, I got the right performance I was looking for at the low end. I am warming up to this unit more and more. Again, the Tsunamis are a huge improvement over the MRC decoders and I won't be hesitant in the future to buy Genesis sound units with them. Now Athearn needs to rerelease the Genesis SD60s in Norfolk Southern, that were recalled earlier this year.
I got my Power Pax installed today and am able to read back CVs now from the Tsunami decoder in the Genesis SD45-2 via my Super Chief system.
Did you see the MRC ad on the back of this months MRRer, they are now giving away sound decoders if you purchase a DCC system. I can't imagine that many readers of this thread will be motivated to take them up on their offer!!
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
With MRC's position as one of the top, if not the top, supplier of DC power packs when DCC arrived, they were in a position to "take over the word". But they were late to the table, both in systems and decoders, and without the quality and features of the others. I expect the problem was that they are a small company, and they didn't have the skills and talent "in house" to design DCC items, and went "cheap" in solving the that problem. To make matters worse, it seems to me that they specified and designed their products from the DC users point of view, with the result being extremely limited command stations and decoders. It probably makes sense that this happened, they were designing baswed on what they knew, and knew very well, but it didn't translate very well into the DCC world. If it hadn't been for their name, they probably wouldn't have even gotten their foot in the DCC door.
It seems that on their latest (and what is it, 4th?) go round on DCC systems, they may have hit on a useful one, but looking back on the path of lack of compatibility, or upgradeability through thier previous faimily of systems, I have to admit at this point that I'm not interested. It seems that the quality problems with their decoders are even worse, which is sad. I hope they resolve things, since a good supplier is always a good thing. But the past few years has made me skeptical.
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
I have read this thread and am really surprised with all the issues MRC has with their decoders. I have a MRC Prodigy Advance DCC system that works excellent. I also have several locomotives with the older diesel and steam synchro decoders. These decoders are now 3 - 4 years old and still working fine.
I did lose two decoders a couple weeks ago, but traced the issue to a set up problem. My base unit was plugged into a 5 amp power supply instead of the 3 amp that is supplied, and the unit can not handle the increased amps without being upgraded. This caused the voltage at the track to be 21 volts when read with AC multimeter. When I put the original 3 amp power supply back in, the voltage dropped back to the normal 14.6 volts. This increased voltage took out two decoders in a matter of minutes.
There was also two Soundtraxx decoders on the layout and the spike in voltage did not harm them. I think that MRC just needs to add more functions to their decoders and allow them to handle voltage spikes at higher levels without smoking the decoder.
Just my 2 cents.
Jeff
Idaho, I think you got it right. I have the same equipment and have had ZERO problems. My system and decoders are fairly new, but no complaints at all.