Nigel:
Soundtraxx has been promising for some time to do a Baldwin decoder, but with the LokSound available, who knows.
Jon:
Excellent work. If you made the DSD-101LC fit into this sucker, you can make the LokSound fit. Only downside of course, is the price. Besides, as they say, there's a prototype for everything. Repowering a Baldwin with an EMD 567 would not be out of the question, so what the heck.

John Loesch

Rick:
So far as I know, the firebox light is 'hard wired' so that is just stays on and is not controlled by a function output. You will have to seperate the light and wire it up to its own function output. This requires disassembly of the locomotive, which can be found at

http://www.all-model-railroading.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=61179

You will need to get some fine wire; TCS sells 32 gauge wire through their website, or, you LHS may have some by Walthers or NWSL.

Best of luck,
John Loesch

Gene:
Since you are doing a GP38-2, I will let you know that there may be an issue where the numberboards are wired in such a way that when the decoder is installed, you can fry it. Do a search at Tony's Train Exchange for the advisory.
John Loesch

I'm 36.

Three of the Superliner cars may make it around that 18" radiaa, but they will look heinous doing so and may derail due to the proximity of the car ends to each other. Those corners DO move closer to each other when they o around a curve.

John Loesch

And now from the peanut gallery.

We Tennis Racket lovers like the NCE system because you can use it to play racquetball with. Or, so some of the Brand D zealots would have you believe.

As alluded to, I chose NCE because it was the system I had the opportunity to play around with prior to me purchasing. It is DCC simplified, if you ask me. The ProCab has a button for everything, and the menus are script driven. If you look at the two, the Prodigy Advance cab looks a LOT like the NCE ProCab, and shares many of the same characteristics. It is backwards compatible, to the point that you can use Wangrow SystemOne throttles ith it (NCE was the OEM for Wangrow and RamTraxx), and software upgrades are as simple as opening up the black box and plugging in a new EPROM chip--although the last upgrade DID take 5 years.

A problem I have had with Digitrax is the ease with which someone can inadvertently go into trinary mode, something which I do not understand except to tell you if you manage to select it on the throttle, you can't run your loco. These accidents do reduce over time, but NCE doesn't even give you the choice. Not too many foks out there have decoders in their locos that support trinary mode anyway, so why bother?

This is not to say that that NCE is without its faults. A nice feature of the Digitrax systems is the ability to 'dispatch' a locomotive into the DCC brain so that only one cab at a time can control it. NCE will allow two or more throttles (with two different cab numbers) to select the same loco, and whoever sends the last command to it gets it. Incidents like this are reduced by enforcing a policy of selecting locomotive '0' on the throttles before shutting down the system. Digitrax and other manufacturers do encourage this also.

I can also say that I have not heard of people switching from NCE to Digitrax, with rare exceptions. Many folks do the opposite.

Another good judge? Go to each of the manufacturer's websites and take a look at the operating manuals for their systems, and see which one you like.

John Loesch

Mechanically, the S3 is the same as the S1 so the same precautions apply.
John Loesch

Jim:
Congrats on coming to the NCE side of the house!
John Loesch

Rich:
Hate to tell you, but some folks out there HAVE installed a sound unit in their Atlas S units. Most recently was covered in Model Railroader a while back, I believe a Soundtraxx DSD-090 was used and the speaker went in underneath the radiator fan on the top of the long hood.

Do not despair, you will get this bugger done. Even the best of us have fried a decoder now and then--some of us more so than others!

Ok. I dig it. I did an older Atlas/Roco GP40, the same principles apply.

John

Ok,  Jim,so fill me in here. As I have not had to deal with one of these Roco drives specifically, we are talking a circuit board with copper traces on it?
John

Rich:
Your header says it is an RS, but your text says it is an S series. Which is it?

For the RS series, IF the unit has a Kato drive and a circuit board, it should be easy to replace the factory circuit board with an NCE DASR. If it is an older circuit board (Roco drive) that has copper traces on it, cutting the traces and soldering a decoder on may be the better choice.

For the S series, NCE makes the ATL-S4 which is a direct circuit board replacement.

If you can send me pix, I will be able to guide you through this.

Also, check out Tony's Train Exchange website in his installation gallery of pictures.

John Loesch

1978

Rick:
1. Remove plugs between tender and locomotive.
2. Remove screw from drawbar at tender.
3. You will now see a screw in the tender floor. Remove this, and tilt the tender up and back, and you're in.
John Loesch

Roger:
The decoder you mention plugs into the factory circuit board, which already has the resistors on it. So, no need to add more.
John Loesch

DCC by NCE, both at cluband home