Rich, I appreciate the response but I don't believe that I was asking for "help". My post and follow up was more a rant and to let others know of the problems that I have been experiencing with these decoders. I am not alone in experiencing these problems. There are several You Tube videos from several different people who outline the problems that they have experienced with these wow decoders, specifically dealing with the heat issues and the lighting effects.
I have not contacted TCS with this latest issue YET as it happened late last night. I do not believe that TCS has 24 hour customer support.
Meyblc I have not contacted TCS yet about this latest issue. I have contacted TCS several times in the past about the heat build up issues though and it's always the same answer. Return the fried decoder and we will replace it. These decoder sound absolutely amazing, but my God......with a 1 in 3 failure rate......figure it out TCS!
I have not contacted TCS yet about this latest issue. I have contacted TCS several times in the past about the heat build up issues though and it's always the same answer. Return the fried decoder and we will replace it.
These decoder sound absolutely amazing, but my God......with a 1 in 3 failure rate......figure it out TCS!
Alton Junction
I have installed about 14 of these Diesel Wow decoders in total. 12 of the 1st generation decoders and the 14th being the brand new version that is made up of the Athearn Genesis (MB1) mother board and the 21 pin decoder. Of the total 14 that I have installed, 4 have fried over time (running locomotive for several hours) because of heat build up issues and now this newest one melted the front end of my Athearn Genesis SD60M when the LED in the ditch light caught fire.
14 decoders installed with 5 failures now.
The majority of these decoders that I have installed have been installed in Athearn Genesis GP9's and Athearn Genesis GP38-2's (no ditch lights). I put 1 into a Kato SD90 (and still can't get the ditch lights to work consistently) and now 1 into a SD60M and it melted the front of the shell.
That's better
A hot incandescent lamp is no fault of a decoder manufacturer.
I have an F-7 with a melted headlight, a Proto2000 0-8-0 and a NKP Berkshire that all had their headlight housings melted because it was my fault for not using an LED or a 1.5 volt microlamp.
I never considered blaming the decoder manufacturer. The six WoWsound decoders I have perform fine for me although I am only using regular headlight functions.
Seems to me that if there was a serious flaw in the lighting effects of these decoders there would have been more news of it in this and other forums.
I hope you get things straightened out. I agree with Chuck, Call TCS
Happy Modeling, Ed
Did you contact TCS? I would think and hope that they would be VERY interested in understanding why their product, multiple units at that, are failing as bad as you described. I can tell you that if any of our customers have a problem with any of our products we absolutely want to know what has happened and work diligently to find the root cause of the problem and fix it accordingly. There could be a design flaw that only gets exposed when the product is made in high volume, there could be a manufacturing run that used borderline components that passed a quick test but not a full functional test, etc.
Not making excuses for them (frankly, I don't know them and have no affiliation with them) but just trying to help you, and them, determine what's wrong.
Chuck
I would really like to meet someone who has successfully been able to install a TCS Diesel Wow decoder and managed to get the ditch lights to work properly.
I just installed 1 of the brand new TCS Athearn Genesis motherboards and the 21 pin TCS Diesel Wow decoder (the new 1 with 6 different engines) into an Athearn Genesis SD60M. As usual, the sound is outstanding. As usual, the lighting functions are horrible.
I installed LED's and fiber optics to replace the Athearn Genesis peanut bulbs. I did this for the headlights, rear headlights and for the ditch lights. Put the locomotive on the track and sound comes on, headlight comes on with 0 pressed on the DCS 51. Go into night mode and turn on the ditch lights.....1 ditch light comes on, the other does not. The 1 that does come on starts to melt the plastic around the ditch light housing on the engine. By the time I realize what's happening, there is smoke coming from the light and the housing is melted!
I soldered the wires to the 12v output and to the LED (with on board resister) tab on the TCS motherboard.
This is the second time I have attempted to install a TCS Wow diesel decoder and used the Ditch lights. The first locomotive was a Kato SD90 with normal lights and ditch lights. The headlights (again LEDs) work fine but the ditch lights seem to have a mind of their own. They work occasionally but do not work the majority of the time.
I have also had 4 of these decoders burn up. They get EXTREMELY HOT and stop working. Yeah, I know, I've read all the suggestions about using a heat sink to help draw the heat away from the decoder.
These things aren't cheap. Now I've burned up the shell of a locomotive because of the lighting circuit. I'm done with TCS. Never again!
These decoders sound amazing but what good is the sound if the decoder burns up and melts the shell of your locomotive?