Why do we need Plux8, -12, -16,-22?
Hello,
This afternoon, I had some time, and was ready to install a decoder into my brand-new beautiful V200.0 from Piko. Well, the first difficulty was opening the loco. I followed instructions (yes I actually looked at the manual), took out the screws, pulled at the top as described, and it was stuck. After about 20 minutes of pulling and pocking with tooth picks (I stopped using screw drivers for this after a very bad experience) I finally got the thing to open.
Hoping for a fast reward for all my trouble, I picked up an ESU decoder with the 21-pin interface, and well it did not match the Plux-? Piko uses.
Why in the world do we need yet another interface?
Anyhow, I found a solution to this problem on the internet, but am highly annoyed about it!
Thankfully, Roco still uses the good old 8-pin interface, so I will have a restful time putting the ESU into my 053 class with tub tender. Of course it did not have any wires attached to it, so it was a somewhat exciting
experience to solder 9 wires to the soldering pads of the Lokpiliot 4.0, but it got done without too much trouble.
Ulrich
This afternoon, I had some time, and was ready to install a decoder into my brand-new beautiful V200.0 from Piko. Well, the first difficulty was opening the loco. I followed instructions (yes I actually looked at the manual), took out the screws, pulled at the top as described, and it was stuck. After about 20 minutes of pulling and pocking with tooth picks (I stopped using screw drivers for this after a very bad experience) I finally got the thing to open.
Hoping for a fast reward for all my trouble, I picked up an ESU decoder with the 21-pin interface, and well it did not match the Plux-? Piko uses.
Why in the world do we need yet another interface? Anyhow, I found a solution to this problem on the internet, but am highly annoyed about it!Thankfully, Roco still uses the good old 8-pin interface, so I will have a restful time putting the ESU into my 053 class with tub tender. Of course it did not have any wires attached to it, so it was a somewhat exciting
experience to solder 9 wires to the soldering pads of the Lokpiliot 4.0, but it got done without too much trouble.Ulrich
Comments
Hey, Ulrich ~
On the bright side, learning new things and solving problems is said to ward off Alzheimer's......but I forget why.
Gord
Roco only uses the 8 pin in older loco designs, all newer locos, no matter what brand, will move over to the Plux interface, which is the best around. You can access all 6 AUX on an ESU and yes, they are all amplified !
Br
Leif
You are right, but some backwards compatibility would be nice. I solved the problem with some soldering. The V200.0 from Piko is a great model, it runs much smoother than I expected.
Ulrich
BR422014-03-20 19:52:32