[gtaylor]

Right, I am going to be moddling in British N Gauge, and wish to go DCC. I currently have 2 15-20 year old Farish locos, very analogue, but nice nonetheless.

Q1: If I got a DCC system, can it run the analogue loco's until I get them changed?

Q2: If I get DCC Ready loco's and chip them, can they be run using an analogue controller if necessary?

Q3: Would separating out points control into a seperate board be better?

In terms of new locos, I will get only the DCC ready ones that I believe only need 6 pin decoders fitting in them, so as to avoid all the apparantly difficult messing about.

Thanks in advance for replying, and thanks for reading. No doubt I'll have more questions. I have read so much about loads of DCC things on the internet, and to be honest I am just more confused!

 

[gtaylor]

Thank you Alistair.

So, are the Farish loco's marked as 'DCC Ready' not fitted with 6 pin sockets? I thought I read somewhere that they were, maybe not. I know the Dapol voyagers do and hopefully will be getting one soon, the Mancunian voyager.

 

[gtaylor]

Thanks again.

I will initially build and operate a 6'x4' board, cosisting of 2/3 loops and hopefully a bit of a fiddle yard. This isn't a massive system, but I want to do it well and have lights, signals, controlled points and locos, and hopefully introduce computer control in there at some point. What I was going to do was get a cheap DCC system to play with while I am messing about and building the thing, then introduce a better DCC system later. I think I might now just go for the better system straight off the bat. Is it worth waiting to see what the Dynamis system will do? Should I look at the Ecos system (rather expensive)? Basically, given what I intend to produce, what sort of range shold I be looking at (I keep getting confused at the spec sheets)?

 

[gtaylor]

QUOTE (markw @ 26 Apr 2007, 10:13) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I went the cheap route first, by buying the hornby mixed goods digital set. It was a good value for money intro to dcc, however i outgrew the capabilities of the select controller so quickly that within a month i was after something bigger and better. I hung around a while, did the research, waited for the elite and news on the dynamis etc....etc

Anyway to cut along story short i ended up buying an ecos whilst i was in germany last week. Yes it is a bit expensive but bang for buck as they say it's not so bad. A lenz set 100 with a reasonable power supply would only have been about £30 quid less and the ecos just has so much more potential it was well worth the extra little bit.

I'll probably end up flogging the select as i don't really have a use for it anymore, but hey it did a job for me and if i get a few quid back i'll be happy.

Good luck whichever route you go down.

Cheers

Mark

The Ecos system just looks so 'sexy', and for £300-350 it is really tempting. Considering I am essentially starting from scratch I may well go down this route. I might get the Manc voyager first though, as these Dapol models are quite limited in number.