purchasing dcc loco

[Anonymous]

I finally have my first track layouot finished. No scenery yet.. I need to buy a loco. I am using mrc advance prodigy for control and power. I have been shopping around and I am amazed by all the different brands and types of locos out there to buy! I would like to buy a loco that is already dcc ready, so that I dont have to install a decoder. What are the best locos that fit this description? What brands out there are considered to be the best! I am looking for a middle of the road loco as far as all the bells and whistles. I dont need all the fancy stuff.

[cacole]

DCC Ready does not mean that a locomotive has a decoder, only that it has a socket into which a decoder can be plugged. DCC Equipped is the term you need to look for in the advertised products.

[MisterBeasley]

"DCC Ready" does not mean it has a decoder already installed. It means there's a circuit board with a socket on it that you can plug a decoder into. The decoder is extra. You should be looking for locos that say something like "DCC Equipped."

If you do install your own decoder, read both the decoder and the engine manuals carefully. I recently got 3 Proto engines - 2 DCC ready and one not. The DCC-ready ones (P2K's) came with instructions specifying how to add resistors and re-wire the headlights, which are small, low-voltage bulbs which would fry immediately if you plug them right into the decoders. The non-DCC engine, a P1K, was actually easier because there was more room inside the shell, and I could just solder the wires together instead of dealing with the awkward circuit-board connections. Also, one of the P2K's (an S1) did NOT have the motor isolated from the frame, and didn't mention that in the manual, either. It was an extra step, and I might not even have noticed it had it not been for the expert advice from my LHS.

[MisterBeasley]

Ha! I usually lose the keyboard-races. My post and cacole's both have the same time-tag, to the second.

[Anonymous]

Do you want "bells and whistles?" That is the question.

You've already decided that you want an engine with the DCC decoder allready installed. Do you want to pay for sound, too? Careful, sound is very addicting.

Everyone agrees that Atlas always offers quality products. Others are Kato, BLI, Stewart, Proto2000 ........

Can you nail it down a little more.....how big of an engine, steam or diesel, time era ......

http://www.tonystrains.com/locomotive/index.htm

Jim

[BRAKIE]

Can you say Atlas? If you want a quality engine that is DCC equipped then Atlas is the answer..If you want a DCC READY engine then P2K,Kato,Stewart and the newer-non blue box RTR units from Athearn will work just as well as the Genesis/Athearn.

[Anonymous]

And, a place like Tony's (and others on the internet, and maybe if you have a nice, honest shop near you), will install the decoder for you ...... professionally done. That way, you can have any particular engine you want.

http://www.tonystrains.com/products/tteinstall.htm

[selector]

Friend, get the biggest darned loco that is advertised to take the smallest curves to which you will expose it. If you have the bucks, please do go with sound...it is just that more an enriched experience.

I must reinforce the sage advice to read your literature carefully. Appparently, different manufacturers take liberties with the definition of "DCC ready". Often there are wires to cut, engine lights to change and rewire, and then the breathless first try hoping that your decoder doesn't hiss at you and emit noxious fumes, indicating that you didn't understand what you read. [:D]

[rrinker]

Also known as "letting the magic smoke out". Since all complex electronic deivces work on the widely know principal of "magic smoke", anything which allows this smoke to escape redners said device non-functional. As of yet there is no known way for an end-user to replace the magic smoke, as it is usually a proprietary product of the equipment maker. Sometimes it is posisble to send the damaged deivce back and using patent protected methods, the manufacturer may be able to install new magic smoke.

--Randy

[selector]

[(-D][(-D][(-D][:D] 'Course, when it happens...[xx(][*^_^*][D)]