meatloaf Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 Picked up a couple of these from my local shop. Wasnt sure what to make of them but there pretty decent for the money. Fitted one to a Heljan Class 25 and the other to a Bachmann Class 40. Both run well with the decoders installed and come with a decent accelleration / decelleration rates preset. I hadnt heard of them before but looking online TMC are selling them as DCC concepts so pretty decent then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WIMorrison Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 (edited) They are Chinese decoders and from the decoder sheet they look like they may be TCS, it seems rather similar in concept and layout - or are they another LAIS? They state that they are NMRA compliant but as NMRA only mandates CV1, 7, 8 & 29 with CV 2,3, & 4 recommended being NMRA compliant doesn't actually mean jack. I note that they don't support Railcom which is important for many people. Edited August 31, 2022 by WIMorrison Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 AE Model decoders are being sold by a few UK outlets, including DCC Concepts, Coastal DCC and DCC Train Automation. Not to be confused with established Chinese brand and DCC manufacturer, ANE Model. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCCconcepts Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 4 hours ago, WIMorrison said: They are Chinese decoders and from the decoder sheet they look like they may be TCS, it seems rather similar in concept and layout - or are they another LAIS? They state that they are NMRA compliant but as NMRA only mandates CV1, 7, 8 & 29 with CV 2,3, & 4 recommended being NMRA compliant doesn't actually mean jack. I note that they don't support Railcom which is important for many people. Hi Iain, Just to clarify your statement, AE decoders are not TCS and they are not Lais Best Regards, The DCCconcepts Team Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesed Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 1 hour ago, DCCconcepts said: Hi Iain, Just to clarify your statement, AE decoders are not TCS and they are not Lais Best Regards, The DCCconcepts Team So what are they then? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCCconcepts Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 On 31/08/2022 at 18:35, jamesed said: So what are they then? They are manufactured by AE Electronics. NMRA Manufacturer number: #169 DCCconcepts are the UK importers/wholesalers. Best Regards, The DCCConcepts Team 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesed Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 3 hours ago, DCCconcepts said: They are manufactured by AE Electronics. NMRA Manufacturer number: #169 DCCconcepts are the UK importers/wholesalers. Best Regards, The DCCConcepts Team Hmmm that's not really clear information. A quick google search for a company named. AE Electronics turns up a retail company in Northern Ireland, a Chinese company which makes EV chargers and an electronics manufacturer in Romania, with a US parent comany, that makes military hardware components. If these aren't simply rebranded Lais decoders then it would be nice to know a little more about the company that makes them. One does also wonder why they would choose to copy the Lais cv set rather than try and distance themselves from what is widely regarded as the cheap and cheerful option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold JohnR Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 Would be interesting to see a comparison of the features against other decoders. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WIMorrison Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 4 minutes ago, JohnR said: Would be interesting to see a comparison of the features against other decoders. Not hard to find what it offers ... Decoder-Manual-AE-Decoders (dccconcepts.com) 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold JohnR Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 3 minutes ago, WIMorrison said: Not hard to find what it offers ... Decoder-Manual-AE-Decoders (dccconcepts.com) Yes, I can see that. However, it would be nice is someone, who had all the various decoder manuals to hand (I dont), listed the features and showed which decoders had which, so we could see what this one has that others dont (or do). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WIMorrison Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 Oh I see, you want someone else to do the work for you. BTW, I never inferred that these are LAIS, I know that they are not because LAIS decoders include Railcom whereas this doesn't. I merely wondered of they were TCS from the documentation layout and content Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 2, 2022 6 minutes ago, JohnR said: Yes, I can see that. However, it would be nice is someone, who had all the various decoder manuals to hand (I dont), listed the features and showed which decoders had which, so we could see what this one has that others dont (or do). KMRC have done at least some of that:- https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/pg/216/KRMC-Skrifa---DCC-Decoder-Guide Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold JohnR Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 24 minutes ago, WIMorrison said: Oh I see, you want someone else to do the work for you. BTW, I never inferred that these are LAIS, I know that they are not because LAIS decoders include Railcom whereas this doesn't. I merely wondered of they were TCS from the documentation layout and content Its surely not too much to ask those people who want to sell us things to make it easy for us consumers to see a comparison of their product against other similar products? BTW I never inferred you did say they were Lais. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete the Elaner Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 5 minutes ago, JohnR said: Its surely not too much to ask those people who want to sell us things to make it easy for us consumers to see a comparison of their product against other similar products? Isn't that known as marketing? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCCconcepts Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, jamesed said: Hmmm that's not really clear information. A quick google search for a company named. AE Electronics turns up a retail company in Northern Ireland, a Chinese company which makes EV chargers and an electronics manufacturer in Romania, with a US parent comany, that makes military hardware components. If these aren't simply rebranded Lais decoders then it would be nice to know a little more about the company that makes them. One does also wonder why they would choose to copy the Lais cv set rather than try and distance themselves from what is widely regarded as the cheap and cheerful option. We can categorically state that they are not Lais or re-branded Lais decoders. The reason that they resemble the Lais CV settings is that Lais originally copied the CV set from DCCconcepts. Lais are pirated copies of DCCconcepts decoders. DCCconcepts work closely with AE, so using the same CV set as DCCconcepts was acceptable. Best Regards. The DCCconcepts Team Edited September 2, 2022 by DCCconcepts 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WIMorrison Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 Strange, in 2015 TCS made a statement that LAIS had counterfeited their TCS decoders. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 22 minutes ago, WIMorrison said: Strange, in 2015 TCS made a statement that LAIS had counterfeited their TCS decoders. Any decent IP dispute requires that all participants make conflicting claims over who copied wot and when. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium melmerby Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 2, 2022 18 minutes ago, WIMorrison said: Strange, in 2015 TCS made a statement that LAIS had counterfeited their TCS decoders. Indeed, I believe TCS got a bit legal over it. Problem is China doesn't seem to recognise the idea of Intellectual Property Rights, unless it's their own. Another one of the many reasons we shouldn't be trading with authoritarian regimes. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium melmerby Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 2, 2022 2 minutes ago, Oldddudders said: Any decent IP dispute requires that all participants make conflicting claims over who copied wot and when. The code that was copied was in TCS decoders before Lais even existed. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 55 minutes ago, DCCconcepts said: The reason that they resemble the Lais CV settings is that Lais originally copied the CV set from DCCconcepts. Lais are pirated copies of DCCconcepts decoders. So if the code was in TCS decoders, how was Lais able to copy it from DCC Concepts, as stated above? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium MikeB Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 2, 2022 5 hours ago, DCCconcepts said: They are manufactured by AE Electronics. NMRA Manufacturer number: #169 DCCconcepts are the UK importers/wholesalers. Best Regards, The DCCConcepts Team THE NMRA Manufacturers' code list does indeed show 169 as AE Electronic Ltd in China, but the web link for this manufacturer on the NMRA website leads to a dating agency with a lot about divorce. The linked e-mail address is not to their own domain but to one with the the generic Chinese e-mail provider 163.com. I'm not encouraged that a company making decoders doesn't have a working internet presence. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WIMorrison Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 Perhaps TCS made (or make) the DCC Concepts decoders 😂 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCCconcepts Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 12 minutes ago, Oldddudders said: So if the code was in TCS decoders, how was Lais able to copy it from DCC Concepts, as stated above? Lais copied both TCS and DCCconcepts. Lais was setup by two engineers that worked for a software company in China that were carrying out projects for DCCconcepts. They left under not the best of circumstances with various brands of decoders, including TCS, DCCconcepts and others. One of the reasons for some decoder brands having similar CV settings - output mapping for example - is commonality. Why change a set of parameters that are already used by others? e.g. Why not use the same series of numbers to make output 1 turn on/off with the F3 key? Lais are not unknown for trying to copy other brands. They even have a decoder tester that bears a strong resemblance to an ESU product. Even down to missing off the blue/positive common on the terminal block. We cannot comment much further. Other than - if you buy an AE Models Decoder, you will receive the same service from the team here at DCCconcepts Best Regards. The DCCconcepts Team Have a good weekend folks. 3 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesed Posted September 2, 2022 Share Posted September 2, 2022 This is all quite interesting isn't it. So, what we have learnt is that AE Electronics is a Chinese company fronted by a dating agency who are making dcc decoders in collaboration with DCC Concepts using technology that originally came from TCS but was subsequently ripped off by Lais. In short, we're none the wiser about the integrity of this product other than taking DCC Concepts word for it. What I guess we really need to know is are they any good and how do they compare with something like a Zimo which most of us would use as a benchmark for quality. Perhaps DCC Concepts would like to send out some freebies to us so we can try them and report back here and on other forums with a review. Another question that perhaps this raises is whether or not the Dapol Imperium decoders are actually re-badged Lais or perhaps these too are made by the same Chinese dating agency. Has anyone else been watching the new series of Capture on BBC1? That's enough to make us all be wary of buying any electronic items from China. Anyway, all this is Zimo's fault. If they could just make some product then we'll all be happy again and can stop having interest in dating agencies (oops) Chinese decoders. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted September 2, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2022 21 minutes ago, jamesed said: Perhaps DCC Concepts would like to send out some freebies to us so we can try them and report back here and on other forums with a review. Looking at DCC Concepts page, these decoders are typically less than £20 each. That sum won't even buy you a decent meal out. Buy one and do your own tests? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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