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Disheartened with DCC, bad timing for Bad Horn

Taigatrommel

Entry posted by Taigatrommel

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The followers of the DCC sub-forum may know that recently the decoder in my sound fitted Schienenbus gave up the ghost. Yesterday, one of my other fancy pants traction units did likewise, this also being a Roco factory fitted model. It had in addition DCC actuated electromagnetic couplings, and whatever problem in the decoder resulted in the magic smoke escaping created a short direct to the function output controlling them. One has seized solid (presumably from overheating), and lacking any spare decoders at present I haven't had an opportunity to test the other. This is effectively 70 Euros worth of damage, as the couplings aren't sold seperately to a decoder. That said, I can get a Köf III ready fitted with such couplings and a decoder for only 30 Euros more, very tempting. However, it doesn't get me sorted in time for RailEx... this weekend.

 

Two decoder failures in such quick succession are suspicious, so I checked both my MultiMaus systems (I have two complete sets), and the track voltage is 22V. Pretty high. Some googling suggests this is normal on Roco systems, but also that some decoder types have problems. This said, both decoders which have failed were Roco factory fitted ones, and if anything should work with a Roco system, surely their own products should! Both are out of the guarantee period, and the dealers I bought them from are on the other side of the world

 

It's a bit of a blow for my confidence in being able to provide a reliable succession of trains at RailEx- if decoders blow one by one, not only is it embarrassing when exhibiting, it's expensive. I rarely have prolonged operating sessions, so I'm nervous. A solution of a string of diodes on the track feed to drop the voltage down should be OK for now, yet somehow I'm still feeling very apprehensive.

 

Shunting will be aided by the hand of god this weekend...

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Allegheny1600

Bad news buddy,

I had a MultiMaus system for a while but didn't run it for long enough to blow any decoders. I did notice that some of my US decoders got hot while under the MultiMaus and the voltage it kicked out was certainly a lot higher than other systems.

Perhaps, long term - it may be an idea to check out another system?

I now have an NCE Pro and Power cab (very happy with!) and a collegue of mine left Roco for Digitrax with excellent results, his system only runs on 12v!

Good luck,

John E.

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Taigatrommel

I love the ergonomics of the Multimaus, it's probably my favourite handheld throttle on the market. That said, the PowerCab is an absolute breeze to program with, that alone almost sells it to me.

 

I found some DIY circuits for XpressNET command stations online, I'm interested in them. I could also simply use Lenz or a Hornby Elite (which would add a USB interface), but these are things to think about when I haven't got an exhibition looming ahead of me. I'd also like to find time to check the MultiZentrale manual to see if that has voltage control.

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Taigatrommel

A quick update that's not worth an entry on its own. Using 10 diodes wired in reverse parallel on each rail feed, ie 20 diodes in total with 10 effective on each wave, I have dropped the track voltage to 14 volts. I thought each diode was supposed to give a drop of 0.7 volts, but in this case with 1N4004s it seems to be 0.8 per diode. No big deal, what's a volt between friends? As 1N4004s are rated for 4 amps, and this layout is only likely to have two trains moving at any one time (and not at full whack) I'm happy with that. Saturday will be the test, 8 hours solid running. Wish me luck. And if you happen to come to RailEx, Wellington NZ this weekend, do say hello. I'm next to the Maerklin Model Railway club's H0 layout "Bergtalbahn".

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