Farish Class 350 1 Desiro 4 car EMU.

[Marcus Amison]

  I have just taken delivery of my digital ready 350 Desiro EMU. I'm a tad confused.
When running the train in DC mode the directional lights come on, whilst running the motor in I noticed that the directional lights on detached units remained on even when detached from the engine unit. What I can't seem to find an answer to is when I want to change to DCC operation, I need 3, 6 pin plugs. Why is that? I can understand the usual 1 for DCC operation but the other 2? Can anyone please enlighten me. Thx.

[Sprintex]

I would guess that the powered unit is not one of the end coaches? Hence you would need one chip for the motorised car and one each to work the lights in the end cars

Not having one of these I can't confirm which is the motorised car though


Paul

[railsquid]

The additional chips are required for the end cars to power the lights, as these are designed for 12v DC operation and (presumably) won't work well with DCC (they wouldn't know which "direction" the unit is running in for a start). On the plus side I believe the chips give you more control over how the lights operate and they can remain on even when the unit is stationary.

(That's one reason I gave up on DCC - I have a lot of Japanese multiple units which are not only DCC-unfriendly but mean I'd need lots of extra chips for the end cars too... either that or give up on the lights altogether...)

[alibuchan]

As stated above. The motor is in one of the centre coaches. So to run the lights you will need to use an extra chip in each end coach.

Not sure why the manufacturers decide to do this as it is just adding extra expense in to an already quite expensive model. When you think that the 150, 156, HST, 67/86/90+DVT, blue Pullman all need 2 decoders, the 221, 350 and 4CEP all need 3.

I am looking at some quite cheap (£10) decoders that are on EBay to provide the lighting only ones. As I don't like the thought of buying 21 decoders just to run the lights in various dummy and driving cars.

Alistair

[alibuchan]

Ali, The Blue Pullman only has 2 decoders, unless I have missed out one somewhere ? ??

PS read my thread on those cheap £10 decoders carefully before you spend your money!....

Probably not! I don't have one but will be chipping one for a mate soon. That what he told me he needed. Looks like I will be doing some research myself!

I will go and have a look for that post on those decoders now then.