In the past year, I have purchased two Bachmann DCC locomotives, a "Ten Wheeler" and a "Light Mountain". Although they were treated with utmost care and operated only with Bachmann equipment, both failed during the first few months of use. Both failures are obviously DCC related. I have sent them back for repair under warranty, but I am quite concerned over the viability of the N scale DCC products. My concerns are what do I do after the warranty runs out and potentially extended turn-around times if further repair is required.
I deally, I would like to be able to keep a spare encoder for each locomotive so I could quickly put them back into service myself quickly. Are spare encoders available?
Hi Denny,
We're sorry you've had some bad luck with our N scale DCC locomotives. We do not have spare N scale decoders available in our parts department, but aftermarket decoders are available from manufacturers such as Soundtraxx, TCS, ESU, and Digitrax.
I find this to be quite disappointing. What you are telling me is that you can not (or will not) supply spare parts for your product. Your recommended solution is obtain spare parts from someplace else? This does not appear to be a reasonable business model to me.
However, if this is the only way to go, can you suggest a particular model or manufacturer of substitute encoders? You certainly are in a better position to make a good recommendation than I would be.
That was a little harsh, so let me put it another way. Does Bachmann make their own proprietary modules, or do they source them from outside, such as the resources suggested in Post #2?
We use proprietary decoders for our DCC locomotives without sound. Our sound decoders are sourced from either TCS or Soundtraxx.
We can contact our factory and see if they can produce the non sound decoders for spare parts, however with production lead times they will not be available immediately.
Thank you. I am a rank amtuer at this, so bear with me. You seem to be saying that the motor control decoder (for lack of a better term) is a separate unit from the sound decoder. That makes sense, since the sounds on both of my locomotives work fine. At the state of my current knowledge, I hate to get into disassembling a locomotive,, but it seems I will have to take that leap.