DCC No thanks !
Hi People,
DCC definitely not, I have just bought a NCE powercab DCC controller unit at just short of £150.00, another £30.00 for two Gaugemaster Decoders for my layout to hopefully convert over to full DCC control. Best tell you now that I have three tracks that are 20 foot long by 8 foot wide and one track that because they cross over each other is 40 foot long by 8 foot wide so it is quite a large layout. I fitted one of the decoders, as per instructions, to a brand new out of the box Heljan class 35. As per the instructions all new decoders are programmed to number 3 so put the loco on the track and here we go !!!!!!!!!!.
Woops, forwards came up on the controller but the loco went in reverse. I changed the wires over that run from the control panel to the tracks but it made no difference so ran the loco as normal without any wagons or coaches. The loco ran fine in both directions so I coupled 10 Hornby lime wagons onto the loco, Again it ran fine so I thought I would try to see how it ran at slow speed. At first it ran really well at a crawl but then it started to stop and start at regular intervals then it stopped all together so gave it a push and it went and then stopped. Horror, smoke coming from the new loco, I got the loco off from the track and the roof was hot in the area where I fitted the decoder. The decoder was black and the plastic cover was totally melted. It was totally destroyed. The control as unit has gone straight onto Ebay with the spare decoder and I have re wired the one track back to analogue and it runs fine, and will never consider changing my layout again to DCC, I will be contacting the supplier to let them know of my experience of DCC and will now keep it simple analogue set up. NEW BUYERS OF DCC, BE AWARE, I,DONT BELIEVE ITS AS GOOD AS THEY SAY. Keep it simple, stick to what you know.
Regards Les.
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