Your decoder experiences, please.

[Chamby]

To date all my DCC loco's are sound fitted, so I have little personal experience of non-sound decoders to date.  I have decided to 'bite the bullet' and convert the large balance of my OO locomotive roster to DCC, so intend to make a bulk purchase of non-sound decoders.  

 

I have a lokprogrammer which leads me towards ESU chips, but I am conscious of the price premium which adds up with a bulk purchase... is it worth paying the extra?

 

Looking for ease of fitting, reliability, fine motor control, and lighting functions for forward/reverse.  So nothing too fancy or too large, but quality and robustness is a must.

 

Any tips welcome please, based on your experiences good or bad!

 

Phil.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Chamby
tweak

[WIMorrison]

best around for price, function and motor control have to be the Zimo range of decoders.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

If these are for Chinese productions with can motors, for refined drive at lowest cost, Lenz standard. Reliable, like never had a failure, and I now have over 30 installed on Bach, Heljan, Hornby, Mashimas in kit builds, the oldest went in when this decoder first went on sale, and I operate pretty much daily so they get a workout.

 

The Lenz is very much an HO sized decoder: if space is tight, for very little more money the Zimo MX600 offers a different shape which can help. (The ESU drive is perfectly good, but as a running average their equivalent decoder has been about 30 - 40% higher price than the Lenz Standard.)

 

All I want is refined motor drive for the least outlay, and operation of some lights on the relatively few diesels. I was surprised at how long it took a competitor to the Lenz Standard to emerge, this finally came in the form of the Zimo MX600 series. This decoder also offers considerably more choice in fittings, the Lenz Standard is NEM 652 only. Less experience of this specific Zimo decoder, but my past experience with Zimo decoders is all positive. I have had a bunch of MX64 in use over about ten years as 'rough mechanism tamers', and the extra motor adjustments Zimo offer are very effective at extracting the best that can be got out of less than ideal mechanisms.

[melmerby]

Another vote for Lenz & Zimo, both do everything they should.

Ones I avoid: Hornby, TCS, Digitrax and any "own brand" or other really cheapos

[Andymsa]

I use the ESU decoders and have found them good and get good results with profiling. yes as been said there are cheaper ones around but can't speak for those. Regardless of what decoders you go for if funds allow for it try to buy in bulk as sometimes you can get a better price for each individual decoder. But best price for ESU I have found non uk is modellbahn lippe and uk is coastaldcc.

[Andymsa]

55 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Another vote for Lenz & Zimo, both do everything they should.

Ones I avoid: Hornby, TCS, Digitrax and any "own brand" or other really cheapos

 

Im curious why avoid Digitrax, I know why I avoid them now just wondering you do

[melmerby]

11 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

 

Im curious why avoid Digitrax, I know why I avoid them now just wondering you do

Non linear ouput versus handset setting, exactly why I wouldn't use TCS either.

I have only tried the small Digitrax decoders but I have tried maybe 4 or 5 different TCS ones.

Hornby R8249, IMHO - effectively obsolete with an extremely limited number of configurable settings, but still plugged by Hornby and not cheap either.

I've a boxful of decoders I've spent good money on and had to replace for one reason or another.

Some will be (and some already have been) used for their function outputs.

[Pete the Elaner]

Just now, Andymsa said:

 

Im curious why avoid Digitrax, I know why I avoid them now just wondering you do

That is a very good point. Justifications for choices can be helpful

 

Bachmann decoders: I have 2. I understand they re-badge others so I don't really know the origin of what I have. I do know that both (1 8-pin, 1 21-pin) ignore CV3, even though I can confirm it is set correctly. I steer clear of these now.

 

The old Hornby chips (R8045???) were not fully NMRA compliant. I had one factory-fitted & it would only work in 1 direction with my NCE. Hornby discontinued these years ago but it has tarnished the reputation of their decoders.

R8245. I have had no issues with these. They do everything they are supposed to but lack a few features which I find useful. No advanced consisting & minimal motor adjustment. These were only £8 each when I bought them but now they have doubled, there are much better value alternatives.

Sapphire: More features than R8249 including a shuttle mode which can be quite fun. I have one & the locos lights turn off after about a minute. I have no idea why. Factory resetting the decoder did not rectify this. I believe you can get other decoders with shuttle functions if this is what you need.

 

Zimo: MX600 cost just a little more than Hornby's R8249 but I feel these are much better value. Good motor control out of the box & very tweakable. Support advanced consisting too.

 

DCC Concepts Zen: My first runaway (after a short was cleared) which was cured by disabling DC running. No other issues but didn't look as good as mi Zimos.

 

TCS: I have 2 of these in Hornby class 86s. These ran well on DC but struggled to move at all with these decoders. I have not tried any other TCS decoders but my ZImo MX600-fitted Margate Princess performs a lot better.

[Andymsa]

This might explain why I never got a linear speed graph in traincontroller with digitrax chips. Another effect was the speed jump with digitrax chips was especially notable with traincontroller, but could be seen with throttle control aswell. Like you I decided to use what I had remaining for function outputs rather than sell them at a loss.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The old Hornby chips (R8045???) were not fully NMRA compliant. I had one factory-fitted & it would only work in 1 direction with my NCE. Hornby discontinued these years ago but it has tarnished the reputation of their decoders.

 

Hi Pete.

The old Hornby decoders were IIRC R8215 and look electrically similar to the R8249.

There appeared to have been some firmware revisions which eventually led to the R8249.

I purchased two DCCfitted Hornby locos, the one wouldn't work with the Lenz 100 system or the Dealer's Bachmann controller, they knocked the price of a decoder off what I had paid.

The second one I purchased, again wouldn't work properly.

This time I contacted Hornby directly and I was asked what colour spot was on the decoder. They said they were a faulty batch and would send a replacement (They actually sent two R8249 decoders)

 

1 hour ago, Andymsa said:

This might explain why I never got a linear speed graph in traincontroller with digitrax chips. Another effect was the speed jump with digitrax chips was especially notable with traincontroller, but could be seen with throttle control aswell. Like you I decided to use what I had remaining for function outputs rather than sell them at a loss.

The kink in the Digitrax speed curve is also present in the TCS decoders I bought, as well as the Hornby ones (and one or two others.)

It is not present in any of the Lenz decoders or the couple of Zimos I have purchased.

 

(I've got a few screen snips of the "iffy" decoders when TrainController profiling)

Edited March 19, 2019 by melmerby

[Alan Kettlewell]

Another vote for Zimo and Lenz from me...and the price is right.

 

If you were to choose Lenz, for a bulk purchase I'd visit Modelbahnshoppe-lippe as their prices are keen even with postage costs from Germany.  I don't think they sell Zimo.

 

https://www.modellbahnshop-lippe.com

 

Cheers ... Alan

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Alan Kettlewell

[jpendle]

I always use Zimo, bullet proof motor control straight out of the box.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[Chamby]

Thanks for all the prompt replies.  A quick follow-up question for the Zimo fans, do you use stay alives?  I have a few of their 6800uF super caps, that I understand can be used with the MX633.  Thinking this combination may be good for the shorter wheelbase loco’s?

[WIMorrison]

I can only just fit the MX622N into my locos let alone luxuries of sound and stay-alives

 

BTW, I use electrofrog points and rarely does anything stick anywhere therefore I probably wouldn't gain a lot from the even if I could fit them in. I clean the track every few months with 2000 grit wet/dry (using it dry!) and run a 2b pencil over the cleaned surface - I also run the locos wheels over with a brass brush every few weeks and both of these tricks seem to work for me

[melmerby]

A couple of Traincontroller profiles using TCS decoders.

 

Stanier Tank:

 

County 4-4-0 (Loco Drive)

:

 

Another Stanier Tank but with Hornby R8249:

 

These were done full span before adjusting CV max, hence the high top speeds.

Dropping the top speed down to something more typical makes no difference to the shape of the profile.

I tried using the custom speed table but it is almost impossible to get a straight line.

 

 

[melmerby]

A couple more TC profiles

 

Airfix 1466 with Digitrax DN135:

 

 

Conversely 2484 Stanier Tank again now with Lenz decoder:

[MikeHunter]

I have mainly Bachmann and Hornby decoders to date. They all work fine, great performance with slow speed shunting. I have dead frog short radius points on my dockside layout and have very little trouble with 0-6-0s stalling, even without stay alive. I run 1930s LMS so Bachmann Jinties and 1Fs. I would probably go for Lenz in future. A couple of the locos are hardwired using Hornby decoders as the locos were not DCC ready. They are some of my best runners. The only drawback I've noticed with Hornby is that they can only run old style consists (maximum 2 locos), whilst the Bachmann are fine. 

[Andymsa]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

A couple more TC profiles

 

Airfix 1466 with Digitrax DN135:

 

 

Conversely 2484 Stanier Tank again now with Lenz decoder:

 

The airfix profile is similar to what I got, at first I thought I was doing something wrong. But since changing to ESU I get the same as your lenz chips. 

[Butler Henderson]

Some locos are limited on which decoder will fit due to space restrictions so bulk buying might be a mistake - best to

a) search for the models you have along with the word decoder or the words dcc fitting

b) look at the appropriate threads on this forum

c) look at the links at https://clarahost.clara.net/www.bromsgrovemodels.co.uk/decoderinstallation4mm.htm

and see which decoder has been used. Some articles will now be elderly but you can usually find the specs and size  of the decoder that has been used and then see if a more recent decoder will fit and is a better choice.

The classic example is the Hornby M7 where unless you remove a weight, something which I try to avoid doing,  the only decoder that will fit in the 8 pin socket and allow the body to be refitted is the TCS DP2X-UK, and even then has to put in the socket the wrong way round - not a problem for basic dcc control as you simply tweak CV29 to correct the direction.

[beejack]

For non sound my standard chip is now the Lenz standard + V1 and V2 for 8 pin locos or the  silver + for 21 pin locos. 

Only ever had one blow and that was my own fault. 

 

 

 

 

[Art Dent]

Another vote here for Zimo MX600 series and Lenz Standard+ and Silver decoders.

 

Bomb-proof reliability and ease of use.

 

IIRC the Lenz decoders have a thermal cut-out which prevents the deocder from being fried.  The Zimo decoders don't have this (and I've fried a MX645R sound decoder).

 

Art

[SRman]

Lenz and Zimo both have very good decoders at the budget end of the price range. I do like ESU LokPilots as well, and recently bought a few at reasonable prices - they are easier to set up to match their sound decoders in behaviour.

For the cheaper end, I do like TCS decoders, although their prices seem to have risen locally in recent years, making them less attractive against the likes of Lenz and Zimo. TCS advantage if dabbling is their 'goof-proof' warranty, where if you blow up a decoder, whether your own fault or not, they will replace it.

For very small applications (e.g. Bachmann's Wickham trolley), CT Elektronik decoders offer good quality and fine control and  high power capabilities, although they can be a little fiddly to fine-tune.

Avoid cheap Hornby decoders - low power capabilities and no overload protection. I also don't like Digitrax decoders, and only have two left in service at present.

Edited March 20, 2019 by SRman

[Vecchio]

13 hours ago, Chamby said:

Thanks for all the prompt replies.  A quick follow-up question for the Zimo fans, do you use stay alives?  I have a few of their 6800uF super caps, that I understand can be used with the MX633.  Thinking this combination may be good for the shorter wheelbase loco’s?

I use stay alive wherever I found the space for it. Even in H0e (similar 009). I use it also with cheap decoders as the MX600 which requires a connection on the PCB. No experience with supercaps. I find it easier using a few smaller electrolytic capacitors instead. My first work done on a MX63 was for several years on the zimo webpage. May be I find a link to it somewhere. Found it. It is still available on Arnolds web who by the way is my source for Zimo decoders. I made this during my Italian time - and - coincidence - I am in  Milan today and can see the alps in the background when I look out of my hotel window...

So for me stay alive is a yes wherever possible.

Vecchio, another Zimo fan

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Vecchio
link added

[Right Away]

Zimo and Lenz have stood the test of time on my Lenz 100 set up.

 

Issues can arise when attempting access to the innards of the models. This varies from those that are relatively easy, others somewhat challenging, to those that are complete b****rs! 

 

A delicate touch and ESP precautions when handling decoders (the latter rarely mentioned by manufacturers and which some may consider OTT) will ensure a satisfactory installation.

 

Much useful assistance can be gained from Internet searches (that's what we're all doing by reading this).

 

Good Luck!

[Art Dent]

Hi again Chamby.

 

I also have two TCS M1 decoders and haven't had any problems with them - although others are reporting kinks in the speed curve.  I haven't seen this - possibly because they are installed in two 08 shunters which are top-speed limited to around 15mph scale speed!

 

Regarding installation of decoders and removal of bodies as mentioned by Right Away (post above this) have you seen this site by Bromsgrove Models?  May be helpful.

 

Art