Sir, I have just purchased a Rivarossi Big Boy which comes factory fitted with a decoder. On putting the loco on the track and going into program mode ( I use System One having just upgraded from Lenz) I discovered that the decoder was of Lenz manufacture ( id 99 ) and version 2.55. Iwas under the impression that only advanced decoders had this feature and tried to program a long address but was unsuccessful. Would you or anyone else know what model of Lenz decoder is fitted to these locomotives. Charles Emerson, Bellbird, NSW Australia.

-- Charles Emerson (emerson@bigpond.com), September 10, 1998

Answers

Charles,

I'm not certain which decoder is in the Big Boy - but only a very few of the older (and now discontinued) Lenz decoders don't handle long addresses. All the current Lenz decoders have long addressing. The present version of the Lenz decoders is 4.1 and with Back EMF a version 5.1 - so 2.55 has got to be and older unit. Note that most all the Lenz are only 14/28 speed steps as well. That's not really any problem since for my booking the 28 step mode is better anyway with present decoders. Some newer 128 step decoders are begining to use speed tables with 128 step mode and do some on-decoder speed interpretations - that will make them much better. I'm only guessing - but probably Rivarossi purchased a batch of the discontinued units for their production run. Have you got more than 128 engines?? Check out the Lenz web site and look through the CV supported pages for some defaults in certain areas for some help. -ed mccamey-

-- Ed McCamey (emccamey@cheerful.com), September 10, 1998.

Charles--it is my understanding that these decoders are produced by Arnold which I also understand is owned now by Rivarossi. I was told by someone in the industry that the programming for these decoders was done by an ex Lenz employee who lifted the progam from an old Lenz unit thus the Lenz ID. If this is all true it sounds like lawsuit material. I have also just fielded a question from another Rivarossi Big Boy owner with a decoder that loses programming after power is shut down, so these decoders may have some problems.

-- Larry Puckett (lpuckett@geocities.com), September 27, 1998.