Now that I have a couple of F-3's that are "Gold Series" I have found that running them on straight DC with the Quantum Engineer is less than satisfactory. Slow speed control is erratic, hard to control and not smooth at anything less than 7-10 scale miles per hour. I am considering purchasing a DCC system by NCE. I've been researching the 10 amp system that is radio controlled. Does anybody have any experience with this system or any other DCC system for controlling the AtlasO Gold Series? Does the slow speed control improve? Is there much programing involved, or does the Atlas/QSI de-coder that is allready installed pretty much allow you to put it on the rails and go. I'll be looking forward to hearing about anybodies DCC experience.

Hi: Booyak here. I have a nce pro cab 5 amp system,dcc. No I wouldn't recommend using a gold series engine w/dc, it dosen't do the eng,justice. You need to to get a dcc system. you need to talk to someone more expereinced than Me,because I'm just a beginer.As far as being hard to get running.... just set the eng, on the track and plug in the power,and things start to happen,like steam sounds or diesel eng.and air letoff sounds. these gold series eng are preset to 03 at the factory,someone correct Me if I'm wrong. press 03 and your on your way. I have two atlas gold series stm.eng,060,and one atlas gold series gp9. And contrary to what anyone says about these engs.,I think they are great.So I would recommend getting a dcc system to get the full value of these gold series engs.I can't wait to get a larger span of track.Good luck to You. Booyak... PS Read the owners manual thoroughly,that really means a lot with something new like dcc. ..........booyak........

Jack,

I have the NCE 10amp system with the radio handheld. It is a good system for the QSI locos since it has indexed programing specifically for QSI locos. This feature will save you quite a bit of time with the more advanced programming. It is not difficult to get one loco running under DCC, and with the gold locos you can even program the adress without a programming track. The slow speed operation under DCC is worlds above striaght DC control since the motor control needs a DCC signal to function.

Here are some videos of Gold locos running on my NCE 10R DCC system.

Getting under way.
http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee258/GlennFresch/OG...current=MVI_2810.flv

Making transition.
http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee258/GlennFresch/OG...current=MVI_2811.flv

http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee258/GlennFresch/OG...current=715469ff.flv

Also, if you do get this system and need help feel free to drop me a line. I have most of the programming figured out and have devised some adjustments for optimal motor control.

I also have the NCE 10 amp system and slow speed performance by most of the "china drive" diesels is, IMHO less than satisfactory. I have 4 diesels (3 QSI and 1 NCE) and out of those 4 only one of them has good slow speed performance. The diesels that do not have good slow speed performance are very jerky at the first couple of speed steps. I have not played with any of the motor parameters, I just set the address. My one steam locomotive with QSI (Atlas 0-6-0) also has good slow speed performance but is also geared very low.

Glenn, how does the radio option work? I have heard some not so good things about it but I also heard NCE has improved it. What are your experiences?

What about using ATLAS Quantum Controller? How well does that work?

quote:

Originally posted by Hudson J1e:

Glenn, how does the radio option work? I have heard some not so good things about it but I also heard NCE has improved it. What are your experiences?

It is true that originally the NCE radio option was not so great. The reception was weak and the commands sticky. I recently got my radio upgraded to the current standards by NCE. The performance is now responsive, and the reception is so good you can run your trains from a few rooms away.

As for the slow speed performance of the Gold engines, it is true that with the exception of the low geared engines it is not stellar. However, it is much better than the DC operation, which is horrible. I was able to improve the performance of my diesels by altering some settings. I would reccomend you experiment with CV2 (Vstart) first. Next, try CV56.5 (min back emf). CV56.5 has values of 1-7. I usually use a setting of 1. Also, try CV 56.18 (pid parameter). It uses values of 0-255 to control slow speed motor correction. I usually use 10. These settings vary from loco to loco. But I was able to improve some of the engines that were jerking at slow speeds.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack Morey:
Does anybody have any experience with this system or any other DCC system for controlling the AtlasO Gold Series? Does the slow speed control improve? Is there much programing involved,

I don't have these specific locos but any loco will run better on DCC than on DC. DCC won't make a bad loco good but it will make it better :>) DCC is easy to learn, since you can apparently use a computer you'll have no trouble learning DCC. computers are much harder to work......dave

Thank you Glenn. I guess it is time to start saving for the radio upgrade!

Ed Reutling wrote; (in an e-mail to me)

quote:

I had a 10A original NCE, Radio, sold it as it was bigger than I needed, now have a 5 amp NCE,,,,, The radio was to me the same as wired. All kinds of ductwork in th basement cieling for heat and cool. We'd take it to msny shows a year -- portable layout-- and never had any difficulty what so ever.

The old original was "Unimproved" Radio, and I could take the hand held out of doors and run the trains in the basement----Solid Concrete walls with all kinds of rebar in them------

Now my 5 amp system is just wired. No batteries needed for the Radio.................................

If you want to pass this info on, be my guest.

quote:

Originally posted by Hudson J1e:
Thank you Glenn. I guess it is time to start saving for the radio upgrade!

[/QUOTE]

If you have the old radio handheld the cost of an upgrade is only $25. If your handheld has no radio function at all you will probably need to buy a new handheld.

Glenn, I believe all the handhelds are upgradeable. Obviously, if it has no radio at all it is going to cost a lot more.

To answer the question from Jim Bengert, The Quantum Engineer is cool, lots of buttons to control various sounds. However, the thrill is gone with all those sounds when I can't control the locomotives in an acceptable manner. When the Quantum Engineer is wired between the DC power pack and the track there does seem to be a slight improvement in locomotive control vs. straight DC without the Quantum Engineer.

Thanks guys, especially Jack. All I have is a point-to-point switching layout. I would like to get an engine with sounds, but I don't think I want the investment of DCC right now.
Does anyone know how MTH works on bare DC?

Jack and Jim

If you are intending to run Atlas/QSI stuff on a regular DC wired railroad as single units (as in a switching railroad) or with isolated blocks, I've found the MRC black-box to work very well.

When I was doing product reviews, I tested the black-box thing with three Atlas gold SD40s, even though the rating was conservative, without tripping out any breakers (internal or external) or other bad things happening.

The control-ability was much better than in straight DC, all functions accessable, and wired in-line between the power supply and the track (or block selector switches).

It worked easily as well as my full DCC system for handling these things. The only thing full DCC can do that these can't do is address individual units and program, near as I could tell, so the black-box might be the very thing for the one-unit DC switching railroad controlling Atlas QSI units.

Hope it helps,
Brian

quote:

Does anyone know how MTH works on bare DC?

Hey Jim,

I run MTH locos with straight bare naked DC power. They run well especially in the slow realistic 2-3 scale mph range. While with straight DC I don't have all of the bells and whistles that are loaded in the locos, I do have diesel sounds and steam chuff in the steam loco. I saw the commander control box at MTH display at Worcester and with that you can access the other sounds like bells and whistles, horns, etc. I think their rep said it was in the $125 range. Interesting demo. That was pretty cool with straight DC current. For the price these locos run great right out a da box. If ya have any other questions throw em up here and we will try to help.

Hi Guys,

A couple of points: I am in a round robin group that operates (switching, switchlists or car cards, multiple trains, signals, dispatchers etc), and 4 of our guys have NCE with Radio. All have been upgraded to the "new" standard. I am sad to say, the performance is still not there for operation of multiple trains, especially with switching. We continually see missed reverse commands, which are extremely frustrating when switching cars. You take all the time to spot the car and uncouple it and reverse the loco, and the command does not take and the loco backs into the car and recouples. The new version improved this some from about a 40% failure rate to about 30% and now it seems to get worse as the evening wears on. It starts off pretty good. So if you are one guy running one train around and around, go for the radio NCE. If you expect to operate realistic, find someone who has the system installed and test it out under operating conditions.

Second point: I have improved the performance and low speed of china-block locos by wiring the motors in series. Wiring in series cuts the voltage in half at each motor - ie if you put 12 volts on the track, each one gets only 6 when wired in series. I don't have any Atlas china blocks but I have done this with a number of MTH and Weaver locos. I dislike the china block mechanisms. To me they represent the old-time lionel 1947 F-unit. It was a great thing 60 years ago when wheels didn't roll very well and curves were less than 15 inch radius. A good single motor drive such as the Atlas SW-9 is just so much better.

I've run the Atlas Gold F-units on straight DC and achieved a smooth 2.2 smph at 9 volts. DCC on 128 steps yielded 2.0 smph. Pretty good performance. I second Scace's recommendation for the MRC Black Box if you don't want to invest in a full-up DCC system.

Has anyone tried to wire the "China" drive in series and run it on DCC? I'm curious as to how that might work.

Joe G.

Jim, thanks for the response. Has your group ever had an operating session where you did not use the radio option and instead plugged in the Cabs? In this situation do the reverse commands work?

quote:

Has anyone tried to wire the "China" drive in series and run it on DCC? I'm curious as to how that might work.

Joe G.

I have and yes, slow speed performance was improved but not to the point where the Atlas horizontal drives are.