DCC in Marklin locos? Just wondering if anyone is installing these decoders in Marklin made locos? ig
I have burnt out more decoder in Marklin locos than any other. Maybe it's the motor, maybe something else, but the bottom line is, for me, it's about 4 to 1 burnt out decoders in Marklin than in coreless motor locos. I may have burnt out more decoders than most DCC users have ever installed! One favorite Marklin loco of mine has seen 5 decoders before I got a clue and realized I burn a decoder up every year in it. For me decoders are like fuel, sooner or later the tank runs empty.
And what loco would that be ? I've not yet finish reading all around about DCC for Zscale, and I'm still astonish to find so many decoder and loco burning out! I received my first Power cab this week and and few decoders last month, but I'm all stress out to even try to install a decoder in one of my loco, in the case that it will blow up in my face, just like that, Bang! So I'm there, what loco could I afford to loose? Especially since all of them are worth over $130 and some are more, Hum? No seriously, something is really really wrong with that technology.:bear-sad: Ben
Ben, Don't forget we're working with very small tolerances and especially with electronics, there is very little room for error and that's not a pun. You'll be much safer using MTL and AZL locos than Marklin. Both MTL and AZL have great motors which are so much better IMHO than the Marklin products. 5 1/2 cents worth.
Thats a valid question. Its dcc safe for z scale, and I say yes. Will you burn decoder, the answer is yes, but I have decoders that been running for years and they are still working perfectly. I usually burn mine during installation, but once you learn to hear for a short, you lose lot less. Have I lost a motor to dcc, no have not. I have burn a motor during dcc operation, but that was due to a jam gear.
I have NEVER burnt up a motor with DCC. That said, I have melted down a loco, or more specifically, the trucks. When a loco picks the points of a turnout, and it's not so DCC friendly, the DCC will short and shut off for a half second, then pulse on again, and so on till you take the loco off the turnout. In just a few seconds the plastic will melt and your truck is gone. The loco that took out so many decoders is a Marklin Mikado. Why? Well no matter how safe and short circuit protected they say a decoder is, if you short the gray and orange wires (motor connections), the decoder will burn out. A Marklin motor has floppy brushes, and when you change loco directions, the wiper has hysteresis which allows each wiper to make contact with 2 adjacent armature poles for a brief moment. When that happens, Poof! You just let the smoke out! There are experts that will disagree, and let them, but talk is talk, and never prevents the decoder from burning out. If you DCC, you WILL burnt out decoders, eventually. Now with THAT all said, I accept the risks, and can never go back to plain DC, as DCC is just too darned versatile! Best performance comes from coreless motor equipt locos, and with the least amount of work done to the loco. The more you mess with it, like adding ditch lights, and other effects, the closer to disaster you get. It comes with the territory, but hey, a decoder is cheaper than crashing a model plane or helicopter.
In a way they resemble DC motor drives (for larger industrial equipement) once in a wile they burn out, Industrial drives are worth $1,500 each, but recently I was able to find some new ones on Ebay for $200 instead, so finding a better source at lower cost is the way to go, but decoders are not cheaper on Ebay, so that seems to be it then, it's a cost of operation that needs to be taken into account! I'll just have to get use to that. Ben
Ben, not to worry so much. Try it, you'll like it. You will NEVER go back to DC. OK, you have read the dangers, horror stories, etc. True. Stuff happens. Statistics? sooooooo many people run it with little or no issues. It is rare to have a failure, honestly. Your #1 failure will be a fried wheel/axle/truck that will eventually happen. Might take a year, maybe never, maybe a month (then a year or never again). That only will come from derailment in a turnout or running into the thrown points. The Power Cab will protect it better than the larger systems (NCE Power House Pro, etc.) because 1) the Power Cab is only 2 Amps and 2) it takes a long time to reset. The larger more powerful DCC systems are going to pulse 5A every 1/2 second into the short. #1 RULE: WATCH YOUR TRAINS ! The motor decoder issue is quite rare. Far more of a problem with the Märklin Permanent magnet motors) than with the AZL/MTL Coreless motors. Many of us run hours and hours at shows, over and over, with no problems. .
It makes sense Jeff, and look, just those last few talk, I've learn more again about the Marklin risks versus the coreless motors of the other loco's. Ben
I am going to try soldering the brushes in place on a Marklin motor so they don't wobble, and try my luck on the loco that has burned out so many decoders. What I have to do is run forward for a few minutes on regular DC till the brushes are settled in, then try to solder them wobble free. It is not my intention to scare people from DCC, but rather inform you there is a "Price of Admission" to the DCC game. Nobody likes to loose a $30 decoder, but it will happen someday, so you have to plan on it, and be extremely careful of shorts when converting locos to DCC. DCC really is a fun way to operate.
I am not familiar with Marklin motors, but are they not just regular 3 or 5 pole DC brush motors? If so, then it would be normal for the brushes to make momentary contract to two poles at the same time, that's how they are designed.
That's the beauty of it all. The bottom line is decoders blow out, and the actual physics of it is unclear. Maybe crud builds up and has a low resistance, maybe a little copper from the armature is being dispersed and has low resistance, maybe something else, but whatever it is, it's low resistance enough for the gray and orange wires to in effect see a short. Also, do we know that the Marklin motors are "Designed" to be compatible with DCC?
Absolutely a good point, Marklin HO are compatible, that is sure, since they have quite a few of their loco with DCC's available, and Miniatur Wanderland in Hamburg is full of those Marklin products in there, (HO) equiped with DCC. But then, what about of their Z models? I've search their site about any support for Z with DCC compability, I was not able to find anything, not even a contact email to send my questions to, maybe related to the fact that they are still in trouble financially? I don't know! Ben
I doubt that Marklin 3 pole motors were designed with DCC in mind as they predate DCC and I am not sure about the 5 pole variety. Physically 3 pole motors at several points in its rotation it is going to have a brush contacting more than 2 sectors of the commutator and the same for 5 poles. Physically there is no way the brushes can cross sectors of the commutator without contacting 3 sectors at once. That is why motors are designed with odd number of poles as this is what causes the rotation. The only thing I can see that can cause problems with spikes is the RF suppression capacitor in these locos and they should be removed for DCC operation. The Nn3 group have DCC'd numerous Marklin Engines and I have not heard of this problem on that group list so not sure why this problem is occurring. I have no experience with DCC on Marklin Motors as the Nn3 engines I have are all converted to Faulhaber or Maxon coreless 8mm can motors.
Märklin Digital is not NMRA DCC but the same principle. DCC works fine with Permanent Magnet motors. There's just going to be those lucky ones. .
Robert, I have a question for you... a) The steamer that you've put a decoder "that support sound", (it was in 2006) Did it die too? Thanks Ben
No, that one had a problem resetting every several inches of travel, so I gave it to Kim because he was going to build a cap backup circuit so it would run better, but I think he forgot about it. It's probably on his workbench somewhere. I also sent Glen Chenier 4 F units and 6 decoders to make me a good running ABA set a couple summers ago, but he must have ran into problems making them run right. Then I sen some more F units to Don Fedjur to see if he can make me an ABA set that runs, but maybe he has ran into issues too. I think I have about 12-15 locos out there, that people say they can work their magic on. We'll see....or not. I'm by no means a DCC expert, but I have more than 15 years experience using DCC and installing decoders, and it's not really fun to install.
I general, there are reasons for this lemming behavior. Most manufacturer of decoders advice to not install it over the motor, because of the heat build up. Infortunatly in Mikado no other solution. When you have the habit to run long time with a lot of waggons behind, on longer sessions, you pay the price With the motor, I would say no advantage between 3pol and 5pol. With the 3pol, the brain will die slowly under pain, where for the 5pol it will more be the sudden death. The 3pol sucks up not far from the double of current compared to a 5pol, but the 5pol has the problem that much more quick he will build up some brush-charcoal between the commutator gaps shorting the decoder output and the motor. If he heat up anormaly, time to clean this part, I spray with some videohead-cleaner. Some companies in Germany (Uhlenbrock, I guess) rework the commutator for the 5pol and fill up the gaps with resin.
