Hello everyone. Its been over a year since my last post.
Playstation kind of distracted my now 9 year old son from full time model trains, but the TRAINZ PC simulator has renewed his interest. So he asked Santa for a steam engine to pull his Roundhouse Harrimann CN passenger cars.
Santa will be delivering a new Spectrum Baldwin 4-6-0 with 63" drivers dcc ready (cat 82307) but I want to install a dcc decoder. My sons layout is steel ez track with the EZ command system and a standalone sound (MRC 312 soundstation). Everything works great!
I see from this forum many options and technical discussions. This will be my first decoder installation. I am comfortable doing soldering etc. but I don't want to mess up this beautiful loco.
So best value options are?
- basic non sound decoder (Bachmann?) - which one?
- basic sound decoder (to use with the EZ command system) and would it require modifying the tender to hear the sound?
- anyone have step by step instructions
- or should I choose to have a hobby shop do the install. What should I expect to pay?
Thanks all in advance for your suggestions.
DerekO
P.S. is anyone still trying to "FREE the 2" straights"?!
Playstation kind of distracted my now 9 year old son from full time model trains, but the TRAINZ PC simulator has renewed his interest. So he asked Santa for a steam engine to pull his Roundhouse Harrimann CN passenger cars.
Santa will be delivering a new Spectrum Baldwin 4-6-0 with 63" drivers dcc ready (cat 82307) but I want to install a dcc decoder. My sons layout is steel ez track with the EZ command system and a standalone sound (MRC 312 soundstation). Everything works great!
I see from this forum many options and technical discussions. This will be my first decoder installation. I am comfortable doing soldering etc. but I don't want to mess up this beautiful loco.
So best value options are?
- basic non sound decoder (Bachmann?) - which one?
- basic sound decoder (to use with the EZ command system) and would it require modifying the tender to hear the sound?
- anyone have step by step instructions
- or should I choose to have a hobby shop do the install. What should I expect to pay?
Thanks all in advance for your suggestions.
DerekO
P.S. is anyone still trying to "FREE the 2" straights"?!