TMCC Upgrade Path in Jeopardy

[jlong]

I know that in my professional career if I ever produced something as problematic as DCS, I would have been fired. And I would have deserved it.
George

In defense of DCS developers. They were under extreme pressure and had no time to get it right. DCS development was clearly a rush job. Back in the late 90's, sales of PS-1 scale steam engines were good until Lionel got a Korean subcontractor, copied MTH steam and installed TMCC. Lionel took the scale steam market by a landslide and MTH sales hit the dumpster due to MTH's inferior PS-1 system. This of course initiated the famous Lawsuit we all know of. MTH's claim in court was Lionel flooded the market with MTH copies, killing MTH sales. The truth was PS-1 killed MTH sales and MTH knew it. It's why DCS was bashed together so quickly and why we have magic lamps, star wiring, a 200 page trouble shooting manual and all that other crap to make it all work.

[Neil]

John Long's remembrance of the events is exactly congruent with mine .

[G3750]

I know that in my professional career if I ever produced something as problematic as DCS, I would have been fired. And I would have deserved it.
George

In defense of DCS developers. They were under extreme pressure and had no time to get it right. DCS development was clearly a rush job. Back in the late 90's, sales of PS-1 scale steam engines were good until Lionel got a Korean subcontractor, copied MTH steam and installed TMCC. Lionel took the scale steam market by a landslide and MTH sales hit the dumpster due to MTH's inferior PS-1 system. This of course initiated the famous Lawsuit we all know of. MTH's claim in court was Lionel flooded the market with MTH copies, killing MTH sales. The truth was PS-1 killed MTH sales and MTH knew it. It's why DCS was bashed together so quickly and why we have magic lamps, star wiring, a 200 page trouble shooting manual and all that other crap to make it all work.

Ah-ha! I knew DCS was rushed; my professional observations and instincts told me that. I knew PS-1 had a LOT of issues (3 clanks of death) and that those locomotives were often DOA. And I knew about the lawsuit and the copying of MTH locomotives. What I didn't know was the timing and sequence of those events and the relationship among them.

Makes sense now. Thank you!

So that leaves us with Roger's $64,000 question: "We all good now?"

I think the answer is a hard "maybe". Things I would want to know:

• Was this TVS issue the major impediment to a functioning system? (Personally, I doubt it.)
• Will MTH incorporate Dr. Tang's fixes in a new TIU revision? (That would be the smart thing to do.)
• Are there still tuning issues related to wiring a DCS layout properly? Or other issues still lurking out there?

One thing's for certain, this will spawn another edition of the DCS Companion.

George

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I know that in my professional career if I ever produced something as problematic as DCS, I would have been fired. And I would have deserved it.
George

In defense of DCS developers. They were under extreme pressure and had no time to get it right. DCS development was clearly a rush job.

Never an acceptable excuse to get a product wrong other than in Dilbert's company.

[rogruth]

Thanks all.
I am not planning on getting DCS but am interested and will follow this.
I would probably like LionChief + better. It seems to be simple enough for a simple mind.

[chuck]

So without all the explanation and everything, have they got this thing fixed?
Are all of the "user errors" of DCS fixed?
Could I buy the needed components, install them and run trains?

Remember that I run a conventional layout.

Assuming all of the problems have been "solved" then DCS is great for controlling PS-2/PS-3 engines in command environment. While it can control TMCC/Legacy in TMCC mode and conventional, it is very expensive to do so especially if all you want is conventional control. It would be much cheaper to use the Z-4000 and Remote Commander or use a CAB-1L set and the new PowerMasters. Lionechief Plus is a great solution but it's only available for new engines, no retro kits.

BTW, the issues with PS-1 are also problems that MTH introduced when it got QSI to "make changes" to their base QSI products to create PS-1. Those changes introduced the flaws that are the root cause of PS-1 loco's crapping out. Mainstream QSI products don't seem to have suffered those issues.

While MTH was quick to point out that PS-1 was a QSI product they were not so quick to acknowledge that PS-1 was engineered to MTH's specifications and that QSI did advise them on what they saw as potential problems that did become very real in short order. For a while QSI offered an upgrade path from PS-1 (I believe it was internally referred to as QSI 1.25) to QSI 1.5 that would transfer much of the sound sets and enable QSI command control.

[G3750]

I know that in my professional career if I ever produced something as problematic as DCS, I would have been fired. And I would have deserved it.
George

In defense of DCS developers. They were under extreme pressure and had no time to get it right. DCS development was clearly a rush job.

Never an acceptable excuse to get a product wrong other than in Dilbert's company.

I understand that, but as a project manager I have also been placed in the Kobayashi Maru scenario by bad management.

Kobiyashi Maru Tequila.jpg (10.36 KiB) Viewed 7185 times

George

[robert.]

It’s a lot easier to use a bunch of toggle switches and knobs. You might even save a few thousand dollars

[jlong]

John Long's remembrance of the events is exactly congruent with mine .

Yes. The events and timeline are well documented.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

In defense of DCS developers. They were under extreme pressure and had no time to get it right. DCS development was clearly a rush job.

Never an acceptable excuse to get a product wrong other than in Dilbert's company.

I understand that, but as a project manager I have also been placed in the Kobayashi Maru scenario by bad management.

Indeed, hence the reference to Dilbert's company and the management thereof.

[G3750]

It’s a lot easier to use a bunch of toggle switches and knobs. You might even save a few thousand dollars

That's a true statement. Conventional control typically requires more wire as well as toggle switches and knobs, but those are lower cost items. TMCC componentry (depending on the level of control) could exceed that amount by a few hundred. It's individual locomotive control (boards, receivers, etc.) that drive up the cost.

But as a way of controlling locomotives, switches, and accessories, I prefer it. To each his own.

George

[Rufus T. Firefly]

But as a way of controlling locomotives, switches, and accessories, I prefer it. To each his own.

It's also somewhat dependent upon the scale and scope of one's layout.

[rogruth]

I was hoping to get TMCC to work on my 20' X 16' layout to be able to be closer to locos and not have to go back and forth to the control panel all of the time. George tried to help me but I just was not able to make it work. Probably a good thing I didn't have DCS.
By the way, my three TMCC locos worked fine. It was the conventional run by TMCC I couldn't make happen even with the best of help.

[chuck]

Roger, how were you trying to control conventional locomotives? You need PowerMasters or TPC's. BTW, trying to run conventional and Command Control trains on the same track/block is about as hard as it gets. It's called "transitional control" and you need nimble fingers to pull it off.

[rogruth]

Chuck,
George made sure that I had all the stuff but he couldn't do much about the "nimble fingers" and he really tried.
It is not really a problem for me because most of my running is "in circles" and so is my train running.
I have had plenty of help and really think I'm just not up to the challenge.
Old body, old mind(?), old fashioned.