I spoke to Paul this evening and, sure enough, it
was the new Marklin MFX decoders that he was referring to. He is of the opinion that they can't even be programmed with traditional DCC tools [ie you need an MFX-based tool]. However, I believe I have found a way around that particular barrier, as described in another post. I have been able to reprogram my MFX decoder - at least CV 1 and CV 50. But this was
not possible 'out of the box'. I had to first run the loco on the main line to 'initialise' it. This seems to somehow set the loco up to receive DCC [rather than MFX] commands, by automatically recognising it is not running on an MFX system. After doing that, you can then put it on a programming track and modify the CVs using DCC tools. Marklin, however, neglect to tell you of this requirement in their loco manual. As I said elsewhere, maybe they just assume that people would always run their loco at least once, before trying to change any CVs. Unfortunately, the first thing I do, when I get a new loco is put it on the programming track, to change its address and up the speed steps to 28.
One thing that Paul said today, which is a bit of a cause for concern, is that Marklin have said that all decoders manufactured after 1 July 2016 will be MFX only. However, I somehow doubt they could completely eliminate DCC, as this is the default after all other systems [ie analogue and MFX] are removed from CV 50. However, if you can't get at CV 50 anymore, that
would be a problem. I cannot see any
sane reason why they would make it impossible to run their locos on DCC controlled layouts - I mean who would buy their products anymore if they did that? So I think the DON'T PANIC instruction should be observed for the time being.
Anyway, my next task will be to experiment with the CVs that control the max volume for the various sound settings and see if changing these from their current default settings of 255 makes any difference to the actual volumes delivered. Watch this space!
