I am an analogue user and know next to nothing about DCC fitted locos, so I wonder if anyone can answer these probably stupid questions! A friend of mine has become very interested in sound fitted locos and would love to have his 00 gauge analog locos sound fitted. Some of his locos (the newer ones) say the are "DCC ready" which run on his analog layout, and obviously so do his older ones which were bought before DCC came along. I think I read somewhere however that a "DCC fitted" loco won`t run on analogue and you have to take the chip out and replace it with a "blanking plate" Is this correct and if so where do you get these plates from?
Having just looked on EBAY I saw a loco advertised as "with sound" but the description said the loco was an analogue one. Can this be right, I was not aware analogue locos can have sound only modules in them, I presumed to have sound you must have a normal DCC fitted loco.
I`ve also read on one Ebay seller`s loco description that it was fitted with a "Loksound" V (something or other ) sound module, and the seller went on to some length about how it worked, and gave examples of what the module would do eg. press F5 for squeeling brakes, press F6 for acceleration noise etc. This all sounds terribly complicated! Presumalby then there are lots of different sound module makes about , and if so do they all do different things? Also what kind of controller do you need to operate locos that are sound fitted?
Sorry if these questions are somewhat daft, but I was thinking of getting my friend a sound fitted loco for Christmas if he goes down this route but I have no idea what to look for!
Hope someone can help!
Kind regards,
Monte