sound decoders - basic question

QUOTE (Brendan11 @ 16 Jan 2009, 14:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>hiya group

I've played a few of the video clips of dcc sound fitted locos and was well impressed immediate thought was to save pennies and buy one - there a bit pricey tho

My knowledge of decoders is'nt great and I was just mulling over whether these sound decoders also control the motor as a normal decoder does? Or do sound fitted locos have 2 decoders fitted - 1 for sound and 1 for the motor?

thx

bren

Hi Bren

You can if you so wish do it that way round with say a soundtraxx in a tender (sound ) and a non sound decoder in a loco, this saves having a connecting lead as both are set with the same address.

That is not the norm however and not even a consideration for diesel, , and one decoder will give you everything you want; lights, sound, motor control, smoke on/off (if fitted) and whatever else you want. As with non-sound decoders (which are as you suggest a lot cheaper) they do the same thing. so no there is no need to have two.

Yes they are expensive (I should know they have dented my bank balance this past few years) but if you can afford it they are such fun; you will at times however when concentrating on changing the CV set-up want to turn it off for a bit of peace and quiet

All the best

Charley

QUOTE (Brendan11 @ 17 Jan 2009, 00:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>hiya group

I've played a few of the video clips of dcc sound fitted locos and was well impressed immediate thought was to save pennies and buy one - there a bit pricey tho

My knowledge of decoders is'nt great and I was just mulling over whether these sound decoders also control the motor as a normal decoder does? Or do sound fitted locos have 2 decoders fitted - 1 for sound and 1 for the motor?

thx

bren

Brendan,

My advice would always be to go for the 'all in one' sound and traction control decoder. The problem with add-on decoders (as I have observed on a few American RTR locos) is that the sound does not integrate with the motor BEMF and therefore, it always sounds like it is out of sync with the actual motion of the loco. I'm not sure exactly how they work, but it seemed to me that the add-on was doing nothing more than noting the speed and adjusting accordingly, but it wasn't realistic.

Conversely, the ESU Loksounds are excellent. I've got several of them. The UK class 50 from South West Digital has got to be the best!

For those interested, here are some articles I have written on the subject of sound including fitting to locos:

http://www.mrol.com.au/DccSound.aspx
http://www.mrol.com.au/DCCSoundClass45.aspx
http://www.mrol.com.au/DCCSoundClass50.aspx
http://www.mrol.com.au/DCCSoundClass52.aspx

There are also YouTube videos of each loco.

Graham Plowman