DCC Unit B

[BigBill]

I recently purchased a Bachmann Santa Fe Unit B (no. 11802). There is no indication that it has a DCC control unit within.  The engine that it presumably would run with, however, does (60102)

I presume that I would have a conflict if I tried to program the Unit A.

Does this mean that Unit A and unit B run at track speed  only?

[jward]

on some systems a non decoder equipped locomotive can be run on a specific address. on my digitrax system that address is 0. any locomotive without a decoder can be run on that address, and consisted together with any dcc locomotive. but dc locomotives are noisy on dcc, and many say dcc will harm the motor in the long term.

i looked at the locomotives you mentioned, they are santa fe ft units, which normally ran in a-b sets. often ft's didn't have couplers between the a and b units, they were permantently coupled with a drawbar. given this, you'd probably be better off installing a decoder in the b unit and running both units under the same address.

[Jim Banner]

I agree with Jeffery that adding a decoder to the B unit is the best solution.  However, if these are the only two locomotives on your layout, you could run both of them on dc.  You would likely find that the B unit ran faster than the A unit unless you removed or bypassed the decoder in the A unit.

If you have other locomotives already running on DCC, then anything less than adding a decoder to your B unit is not likely to satisfy you.

Jim   

[RAM]

The Santa Fe FTs all had couplers and not drawbar.  GM (EMD) designed the FTs to be a two unit set, and some railroad had them this way.  However the Santa Fe told GM, when they ordered the FTs, that they wanted couplers instead of drawbars.  They also wanted steam generators in only the b-units on the passenger units.

[Chris350]

on some systems a non decoder equipped locomotive can be run on a specific address. on my digitrax system that address is 0. any locomotive without a decoder can be run on that address, and consisted together with any dcc locomotive. but dc locomotives are noisy on dcc, and many say dcc will harm the motor in the long term.

I have heard that when you run Digitrax on address 0 and you do not specifically clear it out when you are finished, odd performance issues can crop up.  I was told that the 0 address stays live and tries to power a train even if the throttle is set to zero and no DC loco is currently on the rack.  I o not run DC so this is strictly anecdotal, but the guy used to program for JMRI and seems like he knows what he's about.  Some food for thought.

[jward]

i've never run into that issue after 5 years with my zephyr. and i run address 0 all the time. the only performance issue i have found is that sometimes when the system is powered up locomotives with the analog  (dc) enabled take off at full throttle. a quick powering off then powering up of the system takes care of that problem, or resetting the decoder cv so that analog is disabled eliminates this problem.

[BigBill]

I originated this thread, so thanks, everybody, for the responses. I have several engines, all DCC-equipped, so it seems I need to install a decoder in my unit B. I've never installed one, but it can't be too difficult.

My HO layout is strictly a floor layout; I get the equipment out when my grandson comes to visit. He is only 8, but he enjoys the challenge of running several trains. Me too.

[pdlethbridge]

After looking at the model, it is apparently NOT DCC ready. If the motor is isolated from the frame then it would be DCC friendly. Red and black go to the track, Orange and gray go to the motor, and the white is the front light and shares the blue wire with the back light which is yellow. Seeing it is a B unit, may be you would only have a back up light.