Atomic Systems

Hi
Has anyone had a play with one of these....are they any good?







http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 5936255253

It's DCC I assume? Not a great deal of use unless you have a DCC wired layout.

Hi
Its just £99.99 seemed very cheap?....for the complete set
Am I right in thinking you can run conventional locos on the same track?
and would it be compatible with other manufacturers DCC kit.
Sorry lots of questions

I know nothing about it, can Bachman's website shed any light on it? With DCC you can drive 1 analogue loco. That's what the note by button 10 seems to be telling us.

Ive got the 2 loco steam set on order which should be here soon. I have seen the Bachmann DCC demonstraited at various exhibitions and it looks good and anyone who got this months Railway Modeller with the free CD it explains how it works and how to operate it .
thanks colin

In fact http://www.bachmann.co.uk/image_box.php ... height=278

Bachmann supply decoders to be fitted in locomotives. Any loco which has a DCC socket can be fitted with one.

I trust and hope the Bachmann DCC is compatible with other DCC systems (Digitrax, Lenz, etc).

jbilton wrote:Hi
Its just £99.99 seemed very cheap?....for the complete set
Am I right in thinking you can run conventional locos on the same track?
and would it be compatible with other manufacturers DCC kit.
Sorry lots of questions

Cheap: Bachmann are marketing this as an entry-level DCC set, complete with everything you need. People are traditionally put off by the high start cost, so they're providing a cut-down system which should suffice for most people, at least to start with.

Conventional locos: one conventional loco can be controlled, along with 9 chipped DCC ones.

Compatibility: it's a Lenz machine, badged and crammed into a Bachmann case. It conforms to NMRA standards, and you should be able to use any DCC decoders with it. Not sure about other accessories like point/signal control etc, I think this system just controls locos.

HTH!


Mike

LNERandBR wrote:Bachmann supply decoders to be fitted in locomotives. Any loco which has a DCC socket can be fitted with one.

And if the loco isn't fitted with a socket, most can still be wired in using non-socket decoders. Just requires a little more thought.


Mike

This is Bachmans entry level DCC. Have a look at the following web page for some Bachmann FAQs http://www.bachmann.co.uk/dcc3.php4

It is compatible with all NMRA DCC applicable standards so will work with any loco chip that is also. There for is compatible with Lenz & ZTC etc. Actually the technology behind it is bascally Lenz in design.

They are releasing two sets in the UK with RTR DCC locos and the controler. Plus they are selling the controller for around £60. So good value. The downside for some will be that for the money it is a stripped down system and will address only 9 DCC locos and control 1 DC loco (at a time). Also it only has enough amps to power 3 of the locos at one time. So if you have a massive loco fleet this is probably not for you unless you would be able to accept the addressing restrictions and have some locos with the same address (can't operate on the layout at the same time) . It will control some other features like lights and sounds but I don't know how retsicted (if at all) this is. One the mainstream (and expensive) DCC systems you can control power take up and effectively intertia and load characteristics. The Bachman system does not allow the direct programming of any of the chip CVs that control many of the advanced chip functions except lights and maximum speed.

This controller also will not operate any of the accessories (e.g. points and signals) that you might later have, it is just for controlling the loco's.

That said, it was demonstrated at Alexandra Palace when I was there last and it looked like an extremely good way to get people in to DCC, once hooked on it people can then look to expand to something like the Lenz Compact and then on to the bigger lenz systems (or indeed to one of the many other systems like ZTC).

Matt.

Hi
Thanks for those detailed replies....just the sort of information I wanted.
It might be right up my street...having been out of models for so long...and that class25 looks stunning.

Jon, if you are tempted to get back into railway modelling then I suggest you go for DCC of one flavour or another, it's digital and so is the future of railway modelling.