Loksound oh yes

My loksound decoder has arrived and it's absolutely fantastic.

I've only used it on my decoder tester so far, but I love the startup and shutdown sequences, the horn, guard's whistle, compressors, coupling sounds and everything basically. Just brilliant.

I will be installing it in the warship chassis asap and then testing without a body for a while, before I add the etched brass Funkey body (due to the short circuit risk).

I will post a youtube video on here when I get a moment.

Cool! Oh yes.

so, what to buy then?

Please do comment on the decoders I've featured and indeed let me know if you have others in mind that I've missed...

My strategy will be as follows (as one only has so much cash to play with of course):

Coreless motors (e.g. Linda) - ZTC diamond

High use engines requiring extras such as dither and lighting effects etc - ZTC diamond or TCS T1

Low use engines that just need a cheap decoder - Hornby R8249

Engines requiring a very small decoder - digitrax DZ125

and what about engines with two motors (Garratts of which I have 3) : here there is an option:

1 - power both motors with one bad boy decoder like the zimo mx68L at 4A.  £20 is likely to be a slightly cheaper option maybe and it will require less messing about.  There may however be slight differences between the engine units causing one to run faster than the other and this couldn't be fixed in the decoder.

2 - add a decoder for each engine unit, match the speeds by altering the CVs and then give them the same address so they work together.  Slightly more expensive and a lot of messing about. Also it may be necessary to turn the back EMF off on one of the units, otherwise they may start to 'flight' each other!

ummmm, choices.

Colin

009 Decoders part 2

So, onto Lenz and their silver (£25) and gold (£30) minis.  Each has just 2 function outputs but measure in at just 11mm x 9mm x 3mm.  The gold supports high frequency PWM for my coreless motor in Linda, but the silver is pretty basic (800mA peak, 2 functions only) and is therefore expensive in comparison with other makes.  In fact I think you pay quite a bit more for the Lenz name and I'm not going to invest in that, so in 'Dragon's Den' parlance - 'I'm out'.  Lenz stuff is here.

LokPilot v3.0 8 pin DCC Decoder 52611

This £20 decoder is good for coreless, has 4 functions, back EMF and all the usual 'good stuff'. It's a bit bigger though at 23 x 15.5 x 6.5 mm and only handles just over 1A maximum.

The manual is here.

Zimo mx68L

20 x 10 x 4 mm, support for coreless motors and 4 functions, 4A total load and for £20 - now you're talking!  Manual here  

Thanks to a commenter, I have noticed that this is a function only decoder, the equivalent with a motor function too is around £30 and out of my price range anyway.  But if interested click here.

ZTC Diamond 255

But the award for the mother of all decoders goes to ZTC's diamond 255 decoder.  This comes in at a super £11 via their ebay sales (£13 direct).  It has 4 functions, 2A max, variable frequency PWM, back EMF and dither.  It's 20mm x 12mm, so small, but not tiny. The manual resides here

Decoders for 009

I've been looking at decoders for 009 and here are a selection of what I have found:

Hornby R8249

The successor to the 8215, this bad boy is now fully NMRA complaint and appears to have got over the problems associated with resets to address 0003 that the former chip was prone to.

The good news is that it's cheap (£8-9), small (it measures just 17 x 10 x 3.5mm) and has 4 functions (for lighting etc) and back EMF support, the bad news is that it has limited functionality in programming and although 500mA peak is ok for 009, this may be an issue for motors that need a lot of current, or indeed where you are powering 2 motors from one decoder (Beyer-Garratt anyone?).

For more info on the few CVs it does support click here 

Digitrax dz125

At £17.50 this is a step up (most of the below are really).  It measures just 10.6mm x 8.7mm x 2.86mm, which is even smaller than the hornby effort, but it delivers a peak of 1.25A and huge array of CVs to play with.  Prototypical lighting effects like fire glow and strobes are also possible. However there are only 2 function outputs, so not much more than front and rear lights are possible anyway!  It doesn't appear to support high frequency Pulse width modulation (PWM) so use with coreless motors may be difficult (like my Linda which has a faulhaber 1016).

The manual is available here

Next up is the TCS M3

At £17 this is a very good deal - 3 functions, much of what I mention above - special lighting effects, back EMF etc but also... dither (for improved slow speed running) and a 2A peak.

It measures in at 14.5mm x 9mm x 3.4mm.

The manual is available here

If you want even more functions, then check out the M6 - 6 functions, but larger at 18mm x 10.4mm x 4.8mm and £18.30.  Neither appears to support high freq PWM though.

and for a cheaper alternative (but on 2 function) the T1 at £11 is great value.  see here

TCS also provide a one-year 'goof proof' warranty - no questions asked - sounds good for a beginner, just in case!

Please feel free to comment, I'll be back with more decoder options in the next post.

Colin