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Newsflash! DCC is great.

Stringfingerling

Entry posted by Stringfingerling

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I've finally bitten the bullet, bought an NCE Powercab from Coastal DCC and a sound decoder equipped Lionheart pannier to keep me going while Coastal DCC fit decoders to my 48xx and 4575.
The Powercab and the pannier are incredible! In spite of the not very ergonomic design and the not very intuitive menus the Powercab gives fantastic control, and the Lionheart pannier is wonderful. I've fiddled around with the sound levels having read the old threads on here from Martyn Welch, touching on the need to moderate the noise of the coal shovelling (which sounds more like a bulldozer demolishing an old warehouse with its default setting) - now it sounds very convincing. The most exciting bit for me is shunting, where I can now inch the loco backwards or forwards to relieve the tension on my slightly modified Spratt and Winkle couplings. One of the photos shows the couplings in this postition. I can honestly say they are now 100% reliable and shunting wagons is very satisfying. When I have time, I'll make a video to show off how well it works.
Happiness is a train set :)

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  • RMweb Gold
wenlock
  • RMweb Gold

I've yet to dip my toe into dcc waters, but I'm very tempted! Looking forward to watching your video

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Stringfingerling

Welcome to the "Two Wires Only" Club enjoy ! :)

Thank you - but two wires - really? :)  My electro magnetic uncouplers, tortoise point motors, redundant section switch wires, pairs of wires from the main bus to each section of rail, baseboard inter connectors, lighting wiring mean that the underneath of my layout looks like the works inside Jodrell Bank.

 

 

 

I've yet to dip my toe into dcc waters, but I'm very tempted! Looking forward to watching your video

I'm now completely sold - I have no wish to run twenty five trains at once or connect everything up to a mainframe computer, but the level of control of slow running, acceleration etc, not to mention the very convincing sound is great.  I did dabble in Zero 1 many years ago, and I thought at the time, this will be a good idea one day but the tech is not yet up to the job (I ran into problems like interference between locos, squeezing big chips into small engines, incompatibility with Portescaps)..  I think it is now.   It's such fun, particularly with an end to end type layout where train movements are over fairly quickly; it's great having the engine simmering and safety valves lifting while it's stationary.

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  • RMweb Gold
wenlock
  • RMweb Gold
Thank you - but two wires - really? :)  My electro magnetic uncouplers, tortoise point motors, redundant section switch wires, pairs of wires from the main bus to each section of rail, baseboard inter connectors, lighting wiring mean that the underneath of my layout looks like the works inside Jodrell Bank.

 

 

 

I'm now completely sold - I have no wish to run twenty five trains at once or connect everything up to a mainframe computer, but the level of control of slow running, acceleration etc, not to mention the very convincing sound is great.  I did dabble in Zero 1 many years ago, and I thought at the time, this will be a good idea one day but the tech is not yet up to the job (I ran into problems like interference between locos, squeezing big chips into small engines, incompatibility with Portescaps)..  I think it is now.   It's such fun, particularly with an end to end type layout where train movements are over fairly quickly; it's great having the engine simmering and safety valves lifting while it's stationary.

All sounds great fun, It's definetly on my "to do" list!:-)

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