Originally planned on going DCC and still may. But for the time being I am considering the train engineer. I am building an indoor layout and will only be running one engine until I purchase more, which is down the road. Has anyone used the basic engineer? How did you like it? Any issues? What is the response time like? I’m also up for any other suggestions along this line. Not really too sure whats out there. Thanks in advance for any help.
Mine is an outdoor layout. I prefer battery-power, but I use track power and the AristoTrain Engineer for a single, beautiful LGB Mikado that I dare not rewire its electronics for battery operation for fear I’ll screw it up its beautiful sound system. Be very careful how you power up the Engineer system, or you will blow a fuse every time. In fact, have several spare fuses on hand, because you will blow 'em. Sometimes I think the Engineer has a mind of its own, deciding to synchronize and power the loco when it wants to, not when I want to. Pay strict attention to the steps in the “manual”, which are less than perfectly clear. I have come close several times to writing my own steps. In any case, once the frequency and loco are properly synchronized, the Engineer works just fine, and mine is not the newest version.
Phil,
Are you refering to the Orange basic train engineer. If so, It works decent, I have one on my sons suspended railway in his room. reaction time is good, range is not that great. it is limited to a 2 amp max input. I originally had it set up on brass LGB track, now have switched to Stainless and I will need to add a jumper to the other side of the railway. Layout is about 12’ x 14’. He has the NYC starter set with sound.
Hope this helps.
Nico
I have the next one up from the basic orange one Nico mentioned. I love mine and have not had any problems with it. It is easy to use. I only run one engine at a time and use an LGB 10amp power supply with it.
Nico Corbo said:
Phil, Are you refering to the Orange basic train engineer. If so, It works decent, I have one on my sons suspended railway in his room. reaction time is good, range is not that great. it is limited to a 2 amp max input. I originally had it set up on brass LGB track, now have switched to Stainless and I will need to add a jumper to the other side of the railway. Layout is about 12' x 14'. He has the NYC starter set with sound.Hope this helps.
Nico
Nico,
Yes, that’s the one I asking about. Layout is around the wals of my 25’ x 41’ basement. I pretty much already have a buss line installed for the future DCC plans. When you say range is not that great, is it not even good enough for my basement?
My first introduction to Train Engineer and am very satisfied with it. We use it on the club layout and I recently bought one for at home.
I thought I was having heat problems and sent it to Aristocraft. It passed with flying colors and the culprit appears to be the power supply.
I have started doing operations on the clun layout and am very happy with it’s slow speed operation and response.
I am very happy with Aristocraft’s service department and the same goes with heat issues we have had this summer on the club layout although we have had to switch to older power supplies that don’t have the “modern” electronics that don’t like the heat!
Phil,
I have the receive mounted in the closet, and every once in a while you have to wave the controller around or take a step towards the receiver to get it to work. Maybe if you have it in the room you are using it in you would have better results. Other than that it is only a basic controller, forward, reverse, speed control.
Nico
Nico,
This is really sounding good for me then. I can easily hang it in the middle of the basement with clear sight to it. The basic direction and speed control is fine also. I’m just really interested in wireless operation. Right now I have a NCE Powercab which works great but uses a tether to connect the controller to the transmitter. It will be a while before I pop for a full feature wireless DCC system, if at all.