I´ve got a ROCO H0 diesel engine. It´s permanently coded with address
03 when I use my new Märklin digital "Mobil Station" unit.Does anyone know how I can change that address?
Best wishes Bo Hansgaard Denmark
It's not permanent; that's just the factory default. The manual for your command station should tell you how to change it and other CVs (configuration variables). The decoder address is CV01 if you're using
2-digit addressing.-- Bill McC.
The problem is, though, that Märklin is NOT NMRA DCC, so you're pretty much on your own.
Oh!, that's different ... never mind. :-)
-- Bill McC.
Roco locos use NMRA compliant decoders. There's probably a way to do waht you want, but you'll have to contact Marklin's customer support.
However, you could take a deep breath and sell the Marklin Digital to someone who really, really wants it, and buy a NMRA compliant system instead. Unless of course, your layout is a Marklin one, in which case, sell the Roco engine (I know, I know, you really wanted that particular type, but if you go Marklin, you're stuck with them.)
According to another poster, Marklin's DCC is non-NMRA because of some licensing issues with Lenz (who own the patents - they've granted NMRA the rights to open source the specifications outside of Germany.) Marklin's digital system for their own AC powered trains avoids those patent issues, but at the cost of incompatibility with international DCC standards. More's the pity, as they have begun to adhere to other international standards, and have improved their product in many other ways, too. It seems their cost structure is such that they can't afford to pay Lenz the licensing fees - they offered to make me an "authorised dealer" here in Canada, but their discount was ridiculous - I'd have just barely broken even selling their stuff. Might have earned a cup of coffee and a donut on every Big Boy I sold, with luck.
I've never understood Marklin's "Our Way is the Only Way" attitude - they've been losing market share in the model train industry steadily since the 1950s, when competitors who went with the international standard of 2-rail DC appeared. The toy/model train market has grown enormously worldwide, but almost all of the growth has been non-Marklin. A similar attitude destroyed Lionel, which at one time had roughly 75% of the US/Canada toy/model train market.
Sigh.
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