It was mentioned in another thread (which I can't locate) that the new Zimo MX620 is even smaller than the MX63 and therefore might be even better for small boilered OO scale steam locos. The downside is that the MX620 has lower current limits than the MX63. Anyone who owns or has investigated the MX6xx series of Zimo decoders will know that they share the same manual. This means that MX63 owners like myself learn that there are some interesting new features on the MX620 which may some day arrive on the MX63 if there is enough demand. This is not entirely unlikely nor useless since you can buy a decoder software upgrade tool from Zimo (MXDECUP) and keep your current decoders up to date. The tool is not cheap
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As I have quite a few locomotives to convert, the MX620 is a tempting proposition. My concern is the current requirement of the motors. To find out more about the current consumption of my conversion candidates, I rigged up a DC ammeter to my rolling road and measured their current consumption when driven by a H & M Duette controller. Here's what I
found:-
Bachmann Ivatt 2MT 80mA forwards (yes it was really was that low); 110mA reverse
Hornby A3 Windsor Lad 130mA
Bachmann A1 Kestrel 130mA
Bachmann V2 200mA (Being a split frame, this is a long way down the list)
I wasn't sure the meter (an old Fluke 75) reading was ok for the Ivatt, so I measured some old x04 stuff and got readings of around half an amp. A Ringfield motored Evening Star measured about 300mA.
All this looks pretty good for using an MX620 apart from one thing. The Fluke meter has a 300mA range. Since the Ivatt was well below this limit, I tried it and discovered that just before the motor started to turn the meter gave a brief "overload" error. I presume this is a start up surge.
The questions this raises
are:-
1) Is it possible to measure this surge without access to expensive equipment?
2) Is it likely that this surge is present when the motor is being controlled via a DCC decoder?
3) Does it really matter in the overall scheme of things?
The bottom line is that the MX63 is a 1.0 / 1.2 / 2.0 rated decoder (continous motor current / continuous total current / Peak motor current) whereas the MX620 is a 0.8 / 0.8 / 2.0 rated decoder. So the MX620 can supply 200mA less motor current and has a 400mA lower total current budget. The peak current protection remains the same.
So now I hope you understand why I started this thread. Is a 0.8 Amp decoder beefy enough for a modern OO scale model?
David
