The K27 goes digital but with limitations

Richie

KeithT

stevelewis


Its  a  great shame  Keith  that  you  are  having  problems  with  this  sound  decoder,  I  have  used  many  ESU  sound  decoders  in lots  of  different  locos  steam  &  Diesel  with great  success, never  a problem ( of  course  some  do  require  some  CVs  to be  adjusted  to  improve  both running  &  sound  performance  as do   other  makes of  decoder)
 
I had an ESU Soundecoder   K 27  and  it  worked  perfectly  and  to the  best  of  my  knowledge  it  still does!  I remember  you  actually  heard  that  loco when  you  came  up here!
 
I feel that  the  problems  lies  in   what you  have  been  sold  and  hoe  it  has  been set  up, I feel it may  be  worth returning them or  even  perhaps  enlisting  the  assistance  of  the  ESU importers  SW Digital.

Steve
 I thought that it was a QSI card!  I hadn't heard of them previously.

Hi Keith
Sorry to hear of all the problems your having with your sound cards I do remember Steve telling me he had a QSI sound card when i got mine .

It's his age you know.

The saga hath ended, the sound card has gone back. 

funandtrains


From my experiences I would avoid ESU sound units and even more so avoid buying them from Dragon who I would say is far from an expert at DCC.

Thats's a bit strong Steve. I have bought a few decoders from Jeremy with free advice on how to......
without probs...........also in my early days.......and probably his, he once chipped 5 of my locos for a labour charge of £40.......I must say that they have all been LGB or Massoth, once again.....no probs.

55.5

funandtrains


From my experiences I would avoid ESU sound units and even more so avoid buying them from Dragon who I would say is far from an expert at DCC.

Thats's a bit strong Steve. I have bought a few decoders from Jeremy with free advice on how to......
without probs...........also in my early days.......and probably his, he once chipped 5 of my locos for a labour charge of £40.......I must say that they have all been LGB or Massoth, once again.....no probs.

When i got my QSI sound card from Jeremy for my K-27 he talked me  through every thing with me step by step over the phone great advice even fitted the super cap to the sound card for me as i'm not great at soldering

I've used ESU, Massoth, QSI and Tsunami chips in various locos and I would say if you want plug and play then massoth but the other three are far superior in sound and performance, BUT.
The more sophisticated chips do require more setting up as they are set for an average loco out of the box and have all required modifying the chuff and acceleration settings. You would probably have found altering the chuff setting made it sound better too as it wasn't clashing with so many chuffs.
Your jerky running could have been down to two things, not set for MTS 14 steps or that it was and the transition was instant between each step causing surges and strain on the gears. Funnily enough the worst case of this I had was on the LGB Harz loco with factory fitted sound. Until I programmed a small amount of acceleration and deceleration it took off like a speedboat on choppy water  and nosedived under braking. No wonder they had a reputation for stripping gears. This is the main problem with 14 steps as it's far less pronounced on 28 or 128 with a fully NMRA spec system.