Hello Kevin,
I agree that in many respects the Sierra was a good value for money sound system. However, from a marketing point of view the fact that it was a sound specific product that could not readily be changed to some other sound, meant that dealers had to stock a larger inventory of Sierra product than they had to do with Phoenix. Another disadvantage with Sierra when used with on board battery R/C was it could not read pwm motor voltage. An extra component to overcome that problem meant added expense. Will this new Sierra sound be user programmable to change the files to a different sound and will it read pwm?
I would suspect, Tony, that it’s a beefed-up version of their current 1-amp unit, which is a DCC-only decoder. So I’d not expect it to work with external triggers as a stand-alone board.
As for additional sounds, with the small-scale boards, you can select between a number of bells, whistles, etc. on the board itself. It remains to be seen if this large scale Tsunami will retain that capability, but it seems rather short-sighted not to include that feature for all the reasons you mention. The one-sound-only decoder was obsolete when Soundtraxx discontinued the Sierra, and they’ve got the updated technology in the small-scale ones already.
We’ll see when the C-19 board hits the market, and then see what the potential follow-up may be.
Later,
K
Apparently it’s basically a re-issue of the ill-fated one that was in the Bachmann shay.
It was OK, but had some issues, most noticeably over voltage sensitivity. No idea on how much current it will actually handle, since I have never heard of anyone putting one in a different loco.
Again, since Bob has been running C19’s with Stan, there’s the man who can answer.
Regards, Greg
I was under the impression that they fixed the overvoltage issues with the Tsunami that is included with the DCC Climax. That was asked directly to Bachmann at one point in the discussion when the Climaxes were released, and they said they revised things to fix that issue. The forums have been virtually silent about the Climax Tsunami, which in large scale tends to mean there are no major problems. If there’s the slightest hint of an issue, we usually hear about it. I suspect with this board being released as a 3rd-party board, we’ll get more folks giving it a shot.
The news release leads me to believe it’s not yet in production, though, so we wait for answers. I’m just glad to see them getting back into the large scale game again, even if it is only in the DCC environment.
Later,
K
Kevin
You are correct
The Climax Decoder plugged into the socket, worked at 24V DCC, and used the locomotive’s chuff sensor
Stan
That’s good news, one giant weak point down.
The board is a soundtraxx according to my sources. (Of course since they own Tsunami)
Greg
The Soundtraxx press release calls it a “Tsunami,” and the stock number is consistent with their small-scale Tsunami stock numbers, so I’ve got every expectation to see it have all the features of their smaller-scale boards. At least that’s what I’m hoping.
Later,
K