After returning to model railroading after a long hiatus, I was frustrated to find a large number of my locomotives simply will not run. This includes my Kato L1 2-8-2, my brass I1sa 2-10-0, my Minitrix B6 and all my Norfolk Southern diesels. I can put them on the programming track, address them but then no response
The common denominator is that all the affected locomotives are equipped with Digitrax decoders, specifically DN136 or DZ136s. I'm at a loss as to what's happening here. The only thing I did was let them sit for a while. It's looking like I may have a lot of decoder replacement in my future!
During my N scale adventures 5-10 years ago, I came to the conclusions that 1) tiny decoders, regardless of manufacturer, were more delicate and fussy than their HO-optimized counterparts, and that 2) Digitrax’s generous return/replacement policy seems to acknowledge their expectation that their N decoders had known failure issues. (Even blogged about it: https://updunesjunction.blogspot.com/2019/04/dcc-complaining-about.htm) I have never been disappointed by Digitrax’ warranty service, but after multiple replacements, I gravitated to competitors’ equivalent products (ESU and TCS, primarily), which seem to have been somewhat less prone to spontaneous failure and better featured. Looking forward to reading more about your return to the hobby and DCC adventures.
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