What puzzles me is WHY they were late. I can only guess that they thought DCC was a fad, and was not the way of the future. In my mind they've been trying to play catch up ever since, and not really doing a great job of it. Designing in incompatibility and obsolesence isn't the way to go in an area that's changing so fast. What makes MRC's three even sadder is that mine, which I know will be replaced by NOT MRC is one of the three! Like I said, they should have been able to absolutely crush the competition. Everyone would have bought MRC, they'd darned near be a monopoly if they played their cards right. As it is, they might be best to bail out of the DCC market. More and more of the people they are trying to attract at this point don't have the MRC brand loyalty many of the 'more experienced' among us have, so they are really fighting an uphill battle. Jeff Even if programming CV's is easy, if you are using speed curves decoder pro makes it 50 times easier. Enormous time savings.
What he said. I can have friends over to run trains without needing to buy extra cabs since my old DC throttles become DCC throttles through the jump ports. I thought it was brilliant and it got my purchase. Overall, I think most DCC systems do what they are supposed to. run trains and control sounds. SO I was up in the air until the Zephyr came along.
Our replies crossed in cyberspace... I appreciate your comments and advice on this subject. I'm a newbie to DCC and will probably need a lot of help along the line. I've heard that the MRC decoders are not as good as other manufacturers decoders. I find it hard to believe that perfectly good MRC decoders are removed and replaced with other brands... seems crazy to pay twice for decoders. Certainly if an MRC decoder failed... I'd be more inclined to buy another brand though. The Athearn Challenger has an MRC sound/DCC decoder... it seems okay to me... so far :worried:. MRC doesn't seem to have it 'together' quite yet... I do agree with that... and they are behind on the curve from the other DCC makers. Perhaps they were not pioneers in the field of DCC because they didn't believe it would catch on. There are a thousands of 'NON' DCC users still out there. Maybe they are waiting for prices to be more reasonable... or maybe they are happy running DC as they have for the past 10, 20... 30 or more years. About two years ago... I decided I might just go DCC... and only now am I actually making the hardware investment. Perhaps MRC knew that there would be resistance to change and waited to see where DCC actually went before investing in the technology. I think they will catch-up fairly quick... but... they may have missed many thousands of loyal customers which are now in the Digitraxx, Lenz and NCE camp. It would take a quantum leap of technological change for MRC to convert longtime users of other DCC hardware.
I will say that despite all my whining, the original Prodigy does exactly what it does, with no trouble. The lack of any uprade path is unfortunate. I think MRC is coming closer to getting it right with every evolution of their product, and I'm sure that if you get one, you'll be happy with it. It's just that for me the history (in DCC) sends up red flags that I'm not going to ignore. I lean towards NCE, though on some days Digitrax gains ground. Your mention of the Challenger brought up another of my 'issues'. The decoder is designed to not take a DCC track voltage of over 12V. Over that and it may (and I believe has) burn out. This despite the NMRA specs that allow for considerably more, though they do say that 'typical' for N scale is 12V. The interesting thing to note is that the MRC DCC control products put out MORE than 12V, and you have to buy (or build, pretty cheaply) a diode array to drop the voltage. Again, they are not even compatible with themselves. Jeff
digitrax 8 amp super chief, additional bigboy booster, dt400ir, 2 funky(*), almost 400 digitrax decoders, 1 mrc sound decoder all lenz decoders went to the garbage bin after beeing replaced by digitrax (*) 'funky' is the name of a two-way wireless throttle. funk in german means radio waves. with this throttle you can do everything wireless including programming and all that stuff. a basestation supports up to 4 handhelds. wireless only. there's no way to plug in a cable. a simple loconet connection from the base station to the digitrax network is all it needs. btw, the range of this radio throttle is amazing. i estimate it to be beyond 500ft. it works thru at least 4 floors of the concrete appartement building i live in.
I have the Super Chief. I tried the MRC but didn't like the feel of the buttons on the handheld. I like the bigger capabilities of the Digitrax. I still don't like their handheld's look and the programming, etc. could be easier. But, I am learning. Still, the throttles look and work like designed by a bunch of geeks. I have gotten great service out of one of their reps. He's probably sorry he gave out his cell phone number......
What was the problems with the Lenz decoders that they were only good enough for the garbage? Are these 'funkys' you speak of available commercially? and if so, where can we find out about them, they sound interesting.
My basic powering system is Lenz. I purchased it several years ago before a large number of people started using DCC. If I were to start over I would again study what is out there and maybe purchase a different brand. Certainly there is nothing wrong with the Lenz. All my first decoders were Lenz as at the time they were the smallest and would fit into Marklin Steam Tenders. In one case I have a Gold Mini with a UPS. The two units go in the tender and a permanently attached box car. Once Digitrax came along I went for the "drop-in" [force-in] in the GP35 and GP9. Recently I added a CVP wireless throttle which is a "plug-in" to the Lenz. Takes about 2 minutes to set up. As for distance I don't know how far away I can get. Certainly not a time zone, but a lot further away than I can see what is going on. You can't program with the CVP but you can do most anything else. So in my case I use the Lenz/CVP wireless combo and find it pretty hard to think it lacks anything. I haven't needed it, but the Lenz 10 year warranty is hard to pass up. ...don
CVP Easy DCC: Simple to use. Friendly human interface. Continuously upgradeable. RS-232 port on board. Cost effective for large or small layouts. Well built and ergonomic. Great customer support. 9 times out of 10 Al answers the phone hinself. If not he'll get back to you in the same day most times. He knows the product and is always willing to help out. Greg
The results seem to be far worse than I had expected. Only 4 out of 63 replies are owners of MRC... down to 6.3% of the respondants. The concern here was that... as a new comer to DCC... the support network would be important. There are certainly many Digtraxx users and a good network of 'advisors' to get assistance from if needed. Those same users can provide valuable feedback to Digitraxx to improve their products too. I was also surprised that Lenz is not more prevalent than NCE... Atlas uses Lenz decoders in their DCC engines... it would seem that alone would have helped Lenz be the second most preferred system. I think that NCE must have come-up with one of those 'quantum leaps' in technology that usurpped Lenz' & maybe some of Digitraxx' fan base. MRC looks like the ugly stepchild in this poll. Bad for me... unless they make some enormous strides soon. I noticed that the Athearn Challenger manual mentioned 12V max for their MRC decoder... then noticed that the MRC booster is an 8 amp power supply with 14V - 20V range... not a good thing at all to see. Right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing?
Does anyone have experience with TCS? Been reading all the comments with great interest; however, no one has mentioned "Train Control Systems" i.e., TCS http://www.tcsdcc.com/ ... does anyone have experience with TCS? Personally, I got into DCC only to be able to run trains at shows with my train club. My home layout is still predominately DC, though I am considering a setup whereby I can choose between DC/DCC operation. I went with Digitrax because my train club uses Digitrax for their DCC system with their modules. My equipment: DCS 100; DB 150; DT400; DTR400. For computer readback/decoder programming I have JMRI Loco Buffer USB, and I must concur that using the computer for programming sure eliminates a lot of "guesswork." :tb-tongue:
Very interesting and valuable discussion. Calzephyr, thank you for bringing this Poll up. I currently use DC but will be wiring my new layout for DCC operations. I had two systems in mind and trying to get input from actual users of the systems, Digitrax and MRC. I want to thank jlbos83 (Jeff) for your input on the discussion as you have helped in my decision as to which system to go with (Digitrax). Now I just need to figure out which one of the 3, Zephyr, Super Empire Builder or Super Chief. DonFG
I have a Digitrax Zephyr, and the reason I went with it is because it was the lowest priced system that would meet my needs. I ruled out the Prodigy line because of the lack of a computer interface. I also don't like the fact that there is no smaller "engineer's throttle" available and that there is no information available regarding the throttle bus protocol. I ruled out the NCE PowerCab because to go beyond four throttles, you have to go to the PowerHouse Pro. The PC interface still is not available for the PowerCab, even though it has been promised ever since the PowerCab was anounced. I did not like the fact that the Zephyr did not come with a walkaround throttle, but it was cheaper for me to buy the Zephyr and an additional throttle than to buy any other system that would meet my needs. I also don't like the fact that with the current radio system, you have to plug in to acquire an engine, but I was willing to live with that limitation; although, it looks like by the time I can upgrade to wireless, Digitrax will have a duplex system available.
I have noticed that more N Scalers seem to choose Digitrax, and more Z Scalers seem to choose NCE. Funny that?
I chose Lenz for several reasons. Quality of construction is just one reason. The main reason for going with Lenz was I wanted wireless and Lenz is the least expensive way to go wireless. I have two wireless cabs for a total cost of $140. But I must warn you I do not have herd mentality.
There are no ex-NCE Digitrax users. Documentation? I don't need any, the NCE system is too easy! :tb-biggrin:
TCS only makes decoders as far as I know. Perhaps they will be the next to enter the DCC system arena. One great thing about the standardization of decoders is that we can choose whichever ones we want for our engines. Whether there are generic or plug-n-play decoders, there is a need to have a good selection and competition. This gives us a chance to get reasonable pricing and encourages improvements to the products.
I'm not a lemming either! I don't always follow the crowd just because they are going in a certain direction. Early in the DCC 'wars'... there was only Digitrax, Lenz and Wangrow System 1 (???). NCE came in around 2002 (IIRC) and maybe they bought the Wangrow technology (??I'm guessing here??) because Wangrow vanished and the NCE system looks remarkably like the old Wangrow System 1. I was very conflicted just with those original three choices... and felt that it was too early to invest large sums of money in a technology that was NOT absolutely necessary to run trains. Lots of people were seduced into buying systems with proprietary equipment which 'locked' them into a certain brand and MADE them become loyal to that brand. That really doesn't fit my 'flexibility' conciousness... I really hate to be 'married' to a particular hardware/software... anywhere! I do recall several model railroaders, assimilated by Lenz and Digitrax, pressuring me and others to join their 'clan'... since I would only add to their numbers and strength. I resisted... didn't want to be assimilated. Unfortunately... in the field of model railroading... eventually you have to cave-in and join one side or another if you plan on operating in groups. The alternative is to continue as a 'lone wolf' model railroader... operating in DC or one of the less favored DCC environments.
MRC's yahoo group is owned/moderated by MRC's tech support. They will answer most questions within minutes of asking, even after hours. As for MRC's phone support, I've talked to Frank V. a couple of times asking questions about settings. He improved upon the manual by including a users guide in pdf, avail on the website, to answer most confusing questions. Jeff, I'm sorry you feel the way you do about the prodigy system you have, but I do assure you advance/express are upgradable. I sent in my advance and had it upgraded to advance2. The upgrade gave me access to F28 now and newer nmra compatability. I've not had a single problem with decoder compatability or over voltage. I have Lenz, Digitrax, TCS, MRC, and even NCE decoders in my locos and can run them with no problems consisted.
