Multiple decoders, and how to program individually..

[PhilP]

All,
How do you deal with loco's with more than one decoder fitted?

Programming once a loco is back together, when fitted with more than a single decoder, is problematical.
Either one decoder seems to respond to all the programming requests, or more likely, you get erratic results..

On the larger, more awkward loco's, I tend to fit sub-miniature slide-switches, to allow the decoders to be turned off individually to allow for this.


My thoughts for smaller loco's, where there is probably less room to mount the switches, is to use a 3-pin header arrangement.
Track power to the centre pin, and a feed to each decoder from the outer pin at either end.
The jumper would be wired with all 3 pins connected together, and when normally connected, both decoders would get track-power.
Move the jumper to either pair of centre + outer pins, and a single decoder would get power.

Cheap and simple.


Do any of you have other ways round this problem?

 

[ntpntpntp]

Not a problem I've ever had to deal with myself, but as I understand it the modern way is to use decoders which support the programming lock feature:

http://www.dccwiki.com/Decoder_Programming_Lock

 

[PhilP]

Not a problem I've ever had to deal with myself, but as I understand it the modern way is to use decoders which support the programming lock feature:

http://www.dccwiki.com/Decoder_Programming_Lock

Fine if you are fitting two new decoders, but this scenario is usually when a DCC equipped loco comes in, and the Client wants sound added..
This would quite often mean a small/large LGB onboard decoder already fitted, which due to their vintage, do not support this feature.

Even if you give a discount against their old decoder, some people do not want the expense of a total change to an XLS (say).