Early June, 2004.

For a few weeks, I have been thinking of changing over to DCC control.
I've been watching the various newsgroups, asking some questions
and eventually thought that, Yes, I'd go the DCC route.
On Saturday 5th June 2004, the DEMU modellers group held their annual Showcase event
in Burton on Trent, and as I'd been told there would be several DCC controlled layouts there,
I thought I'd go along and see DCC in action for myself before finally committing myself.

Lo! and behold, there on sale was the DCC system I had been hoping for, the LENZ Set 100.

The Lenz Set 100 at home, all wired up and working.

I made a bee-line for Nick Guerny and his layout and spoke to him briefly about DCC,
and he convinced me that if I tried DCC then I would never entertain going back to
conventional control. How right he turned out to be! I immediately returned to the
EXPRESS MODELS stall and bought the above set as well as the TR100 transformer.
I also bought six modules, five being either LE1024E or LE1025E (these having a plug)
and one LE1024A (or LE1025A) - this one not having a plug.

A Lenz module, this one being the LE1024E.

Back home that same evening, I immediately chipped a Bachmann 37 (37029), this being
DCC ready, and it was a simple case of removing the body, taking out the blanking plug,
and inserting the plug of the chip. Rising earlier than normal on Sunday morning, I set to
work chipping some more Bachmann DCC ready locos, namely:- 25054, 46053, and 55020.
Unfortunately during this process, I managed to 'fry' one of the modules,
and this will have to be returned to Lenz under their excellent warranty.
By Sunday evening, I had plucked up the courage to hard wire a loco with the non-plug
fitted module, and I chose a Lima 31 (31325) to be the lucky recipient.
Surprisingly (for me) all went wonderfully easy and I encountered no problems at all,
and now the thought of chipping the rest of my locos does not daunt me at all,
except perhaps for the Bachmann 03's and 04's.

My DCC equipped locos so far
(except for the Parcels 47 in the shed-which isn't).

A couple of things that have impressed me already with the Lenz Set 100 are
the wonderful slow-speed running that one can achieve with DCC and also
that this set can operate a non chipped loco. Until I manage to chip all my
fleet (and that is going to take quite a while as well as a pile of cash)
this facility will enable me to run all my loco fleet (albeit only one unchipped loco at a time).

I have so far managed to fathom out how to change the loco addresses and now
I've got to try and make some sense out of these CV thingies :-).
(More on this as I learn)

At the moment, I intend to keep the point and signal control conventional,
as I like 'pulling levers' (I wanted to be a signalman), but who knows what may happen!

As things progress, I'll update this page, but now I'm off to play trains -
more realistically than ever before!!

Monday and Tuesday 7th/8th June 2004

Got busy with the wire cutters and soldering iron.
Monday saw me removing all isolating sections from the station and carriage sidings.
Tuesday I removed all the remaining isolating sections.
Because all of my points are of the dead frog type, extra jumpers
have been installed and all lines, sidings etc. are now fully live.

Wednesday 9th June 2004

Today was the fiddle yards turn to be wired, and all five roads are now live.
The whole layout is still fed from the same three points as it was in DC mode.
This basically completes the conversion of the layout to DCC mode with the exception
of the locos themselves. I hope to be able to chip a couple of locos per week, although
some weeks I won't be able to do any and other weeks I may be able to do more.
For the latest status on which locos have been chipped, please see the LOCOS/DMU page.

Thursday 10th June 2004

This evening I decided to have a quick play with some CV's
but in the end all I managed to do was to put all chipped locos into 128 speed step mode.
Having them set like this makes them run even slower and smoother - or is that my imagination?

Sometime in June 2004

All DCC locos now have slow acceleration and deceleration
(although they slow down a little bit quicker than starting up).
Most have also had their top speed 'capped'.

W/C 19th September 2004.

At long last I have enough 'spare' cash to get some more modules.
These are now on order with Express Models.
Hopefully they will arrive this week and then they will be fitted ASAP.
(See LOCOS page for details of which locos have been selected
for this round of chipping).

Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th September 2004.
The modules having duly arrived, three locos immediately underwent change.
These were 40140, 37049 and 47564 - all Lima offerings, and despite having
no DCC sockets fitted, I consider these easy to modify.
Friday saw me tackle 56084 from Mainline.
Although relatively easy, and again with no DCC socket,
this loco is the first I've hard-wired that has lights.
Fortunately, everything worked first time and has given me
more confidence for the next round of module fitting.

Modules.
Well, progress never stands still and my once standard chip (the Lenz 1024/1025 variants)
have now changed into Lenz Silvers. These do all I want although there are 'better' ones
if I wished. And, of course, there is sound too, but to be honest I'm not too bothered about that,
although I might buy a Bachmann sound fitted blue 47 just so I know what it's all about.

Point Modules.
Well, I have taken the plunge and treated myself to a Lenz 1050 point module.
Only because I've added a new extension to the layout with a second 5 road fiddle yard.
It's this fiddle yard that has had the point module fitted.
The module, and five point motors (Peco) have all been above baseboard mounted,
as the section where they are has been covered with a removable top (where Barney normally sleeps).
The sixth point is a Seep mounted underneath the baseboard.
The Seep is quite quiet in operation (only a soft click) whereas the Peco motors make quite a
buzz and thud. Never mind.
However, operating these points via the Lenz set 100 handset is quite a pain, so I looked for alternatives,
and found that Roco did a Route Control box that is totally compatible with Lenz, so I bought one (from the US!).
This has made point operation an absolute doddle, and a bonus is that it can handle 32 route-settings as well.
So, three more point modules are now in the pipeline to convert the rest of the points, so that I can
set complete routes simply and easily. For anyone with DCC controlled points, I cannot speak
highly enough of these Roco units. I hadn't had mine an hour and I wondered why I hadn't got one before.
Here's a picture of it....