Soundtraxx Blunami Decoder (new to me)

[Norton]

Just back from an open house that a local club put on. They have and large HO layout plus N, and two three rail layouts, hi rail and post war. Their HO is all DCC on the rails and all the trains seemed to run without issues. Not sure how many feet their mainline is but one member mentioned it can take 15 minutes to cover it. Point is DCC can be made reliable if you have time or manpower to maintain it.

Pete

[gregj410]

Here you go Butch. Couple a fellas here that can help you out. Might ease the hobby is dying crowd as well.

https://youtu.be/spdLuiBy2gE?si=wEpbxD0B4Uqz9PwI

[sarge]

Just back from an open house that a local club put on. They have and large HO layout plus N, and two three rail layouts, hi rail and post war. Their HO is all DCC on the rails and all the trains seemed to run without issues. Not sure how many feet their mainline is but one member mentioned it can take 15 minutes to cover it. Point is DCC can be made reliable if you have time or manpower to maintain it.

Pete

True, but to a point.

That time and manpower for maintenance qualification is a very important one, and 90% of the battle is cleanliness. Every mechanical joint in the signal and supply-voltage path is a weak point. A "patch" is the "stay-alive" circuitry on many modern sound decoders so the sound doesn't cut out and restart when the path is broken by a bit of dirt in the mechanical joints like between rail and wheel or pickup and wheel.

Second issue is that DCC really is engineered (and spec'd as a standard by NMRA) for HO. The amperage draw, both operating and stall, is a helluva lot less to move HO than O Scale. The first time I worked with NMRA DCC was with Digitrax, sized the decoders to appropriate amperage draws, yet still the decoders were a consumable rather than a once-and-done installation. I borrowed a scope, put it to the railroad, and discovered an interesting effect. Every piece of dirt on a wheel or pickup would spark, the arc manifesting itself on the scope as a very short duration amperage spike but of a very high amplitude, often in the three digits, reminiscent of a static discharge event. Not very conducive to long life of a circuit board assembled in a factory by someone wearing one of those static discharge earthing/ground things around his wrist to avoid damaging the components during assembly. Where the decoder components seemed long-lived in HO applications, the increased mass, larger motors, of O scale, the same things that we bragged about in conventional control that allowed us to not clean track while the HO and N guys were scrubbing away, were slowly killing my decoders.

That same issue made Atlas' life miserable when their diesels would go stupid after a while, one reason was the resistance of the constant 18-20 volts through the springs in the plunger pickups when they got oily and dirty was heat-softening the metal, then intermittent contact would make them glow like the filament in a lightbulb and melt, the cross-section of the springwire too small for the current. The other issue was plated wheels. Every dirt spot was an arc, every arc a pit, every pit more arching, until the plating is gone from the wheel. All this much more problematic with these systems because of the constant 20 volts rather than the variable voltage of conventional cab control, all the effects exacerbated by the mass and horsepower requirements of O compared to the smaller scales.

I also found the reliability goes down in an ops environment versus a display type application, the latter with trains orbiting about at constant speeds versus the switching, rampings up-and-down, and complex trackage of the former. The last system I used here in an ops environment was an MRC system with a decoder standard of the NCE D408. I don't believe there is a more reliable and robust decoder than the bombproof butt-simple D408. It was a reliable system for an ops layout in O. Just not as reliable as well-engineered conventional cab-control.

I've been using the stuff on and off since the days of Hornby Zero-1. At one point I wandered off to a full-on R/C system, Locolinc. Then I understood that the inherent weakness in carrier control is the signal path through the rails. Locolinc was crude but the reliability was lightyears ahead. It didn't care where the power came from (battery or track) as long as there was 12-20 volts DC coming into the board for it to modulate and send to the motor, lights, and the early soundboards of that era like Phoenix. That experience is why I'm so envious of the R/C systems these other groups have to hand today, the technology and capability lightyears ahead of Locolinc, and (other than possibly Blunami) unknown to us. Why? Only because someone thought Lentz-protocol DCC needed to be an industry standard for all time.

[bob turner]

Someday what I will do is buy an RC car for not many bucks and just steal the electronics, sticking it in my AC-8 with a huge battery. Last Ichecked it was $35 not including batteries.

[up148]

The options are many, that is for sure......and we have a lot more choices today than in the past. And, the evolution of all these options has improved reliability.

[sarge]

The options are many, that is for sure......and we have a lot more choices today than in the past. And, the evolution of all these options has improved reliability.

Butch, you are unfailingly kind and the voice of reason.

But no, we don't have more choices. If anything we have fewer because of the NMRA sticking their noses in where they didn't belong, and I'll take issue with the last statement too; for example the huge kluge-pile of boards that fill a modern model such that there is no room for a decent drive today are nowhere near as reliable as a simple D408 decoder.

I really think Blunami is by far the best choice for you. If you are going to move, might as well move forward, especially with a limited number of locos.

They can hang more features and cab-chatter and synchro-smoke on this stuff and call it evolution of technology, but at the end of the day carrier systems (DCC or the three rail stuff) will always be buggies in a Corvette world and the NMRA (not to mention Lionel and whoever the hell holds DCS this week) closed-minded religions telling us we're better off with buggies.

How many gallons of ink, reams of paper, and terrabytes of data have been invested over years and years in how to make aluminium hats and hot-loops and other voodoo to make DCC, DCS, and the retread after retread of Lionel systems actually work well? Digital signals transmitted through dirty track and mechanical joints will never ever be reliable.

[Chris Webster]

The big advantage is quite simply one is not sending control-packets as a carrier signal

Unfortunately, in the scale world we have the NMRA and the silly notion of making DCC a standard. They have singlehandedly stifled innovation in the model railroad world simply because they can't move remotely fast enough to keep pace with the innovation the rest of the animated model is currently enjoying. The whole thing of a digital signal fired down the track over top of a voltage goes back to the 1960s and GE Astrac,

Respectfully Sarge, you're full of crap.

There is no "carrier signal" or "digital signal fired down the track over top of a voltage" in DCC. In DCC, the voltage *is* the signal - the voltage on the track and the signal are one and the same.

If NMRA had not become a boffin-fest over DCC, and just defined the plugs for power in and power distribution out, one could swop in a new board and new technology of ones choice in a model rather than have the whole dam thing become obsolete for most users who aren't technophiles and EEs.

I don't understand your complaint -- manufacturers have for decades now been selling analog ("DCC-ready") locomotives that have NMRA-standard plugs in them - just buy one of those and you can plug in whatever decoder or receiver you want.

I think you're also forgetting that NMRA standards and recommended practices exist so that modelers can interchange their equipment.

[up148]

Here you go Butch. Couple a fellas here that can help you out. Might ease the hobby is dying crowd as well.

https://youtu.be/spdLuiBy2gE?si=wEpbxD0B4Uqz9PwI

Thanks Greg. I just found your post. Everyone needs to see that video, if only to see two young guys who are ate up with trains like we are. Sure, it's 3R but the trains have be weathered, upgraded and these guys know what they're talking about. Thanks you sir!

[Chris Webster]

So, I was wondering if any of you guys have any experience with installing DCC decoders or even the Blunami.

I've invested in ESU decoders because ESU was the only company that had recordings of my favorite diesels but I also think very highly of Soundtraxx -- I used to know their recording engineer.

If I were just getting into command control today, the Blunami is where I'd start.

I also learned about the Tang band speakers which judging from the posted video are the most realistic sounding loco speakers I've every heard. So, I think I'm going to play with this a little.

My understanding is that the Tang Bang speakers are the type of speakers used in flat screen tvs, while most model engines use speakers intended for cell phones. My flat screen tv sounds a lot better than my cell phone!

Bob Sobol has shared many photos of his tang-bang installations on his Smugmug and on the model Appalachian and Ohio forums.

[sarge]

According to Wikipedia, you're right in my being full of crap about the signal being separate from the available base voltage to be modulated so I'll cheerfully give you that.

My complaint remains the same.

The issue is there should be no standard for electronic control systems. There should only be one for the interfaces, the plug arrangement and power requirements for input and output through those plug arrangements. NMRA went too far defining DCC itself as a standard and going even further by defining an interpretation of Lentz signal protocols as a standard. You cannot innovate beyond it and be compliant.

That standard defines the rail with all its disadvantages as to clarity as the signal path. Today, far cleaner and more reliable avenues are available over which to send data, but compliance with the standard says you can't do it. Given that I am indeed full of shit and the Wikipedia description is correct, which I have no reason to doubt, that actually makes matters even more restrictive for the power put to the track can't be anything but what comes from base & booster. R/C allows anything, battery, DC, or AC with a rectifier circuit before the receiver, for example.

As far as the current "DCC-ready" plug arrangement, that is as far as the standard should have gone. Unfortunately, you can't point to anything in O Scale that has been made available "DCC-ready" probably in the last two decades. Smaller scales, I assume that isn't true. O scale? You get whatever system they put it, ESU, Soundtrax, but no analogue choice. That means I pay for electronics I don't want, electronics that in some cases aren't even "compliant". I have no choice but to take, say, a Sunset Geep and strip it all out back to the puckups and motor leads and rewire from scratch.

I seriously doubt you could unplug the controls from a second-run Sunset Geep and replace it by plugs alone with the boards from a first run Sunset Geep (they changed sources between runs), so the model is not really forward or backward compatible so as to be standardised.

Those are some of my many complaints about it. The bits that should be standardised really aren't, the bit that shouldn't be standardised is so no innovation that is technically "better" is compliant and the end user can't even standardise his fleet without undue extra expense and work beyond unplug/replug. That is the whole point of standards.

[Norton]

Tang band makes a number of different styles of speakers. Some are conventional looking with a cone and large magnet. Some are in an enclosure, usually flat and rectangular and among those are ducted port and passive radiator where it appears to have two drivers but one is simply a cone that moves in response to the back pressure in the enclosure. I have used one of the latter in a Weaver RS 3 and the sound is impressive compared to the more common 2”/50mm drivers. Parts Express is one of their dealers.

https://www.parts-express.com/search?ke ... ang%20band

Pete

[Chris Webster]

Unfortunately, you can't point to anything in O Scale that has been made available "DCC-ready" probably in the last two decades. Smaller scales, I assume that isn't true. O scale? You get whatever system they put it, ESU, Soundtrax, but no analogue choice.

Right *now* Atlas is taking preorders for their next run of MP15DCs. 2-Rail analog versions are $459.95 and $469.95 while the DCC versions are $659.95 and $669.95, $200 more than the analog versions. The other $10 difference is for ditchlights - the locomotives with factory-installed ditch lights are $10 more than locomotives without the ditch lights.

Atlas also took preorders for analog C424 and C425s, but those are closed now.

[sarge]

Atlas then is the first to try marketing an analogue version in O Scale to my knowledge in probably 15 years at least, and I applaud it. I hope it works out for them. Its one of the biggest reasons why I haven't considered any new product in a long time.

It isn't clear on their web-blurb if they are plug-equipped ("DCC-ready) or not. I'd be curious to know.

[up148]

Right you are Pete. This the Tang Band speaker in Ed's models in the Boyd Reyes video and that is what 1st caught my attention. Best sounding O scale locomotives I've ever heard. And, he suggested going to Parts Express as well.

https://www.parts-express.com/Tang-Band ... quantity=1