Short &/or Long Address


idiot

Member
What is the best address to use? Leave locomotives all with #3 short address and assign different long addresses?
 
Best is to use the number painted on the side of the locomotive as the decoder's long address so you don't need some magic decoder ring to figure out what your locomotive addresses are.
 
What is the best address to use? Leave locomotives all with #3 short address and assign different long addresses?
'idiot', the address '3' is assigned to all DCC locos so that you can at least run thm immediately / that it's ready for programming, too. If your loco has, say, 29 on its cab, you can change the 3 to 29, which I believe will be a short address. You will, through the instruction manual with your controller (NCE, Digitrax,) learn how to do this. Then when you want that loco to roll you'll get up loco 29 on your screen. If cab is # 3741, say, add that # to your throttle as a long address..You don't have to use default cab numbers. Number them anything you like..Then you can program whistle / horn / bell types, lights, volume, momentum, chuff rate on steamers, to each loco. You'll get it ! ... M
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Wow ! This is fun !! We can now call someone idiot without being deleted for flaming !!
 
From what Decoder Pro shows in their software and what Larry Puckett states in his videos where he discusses the use of Decoder Pro, the address can be either Long; or, Short and it doesn't matter. He suggests that the Address be the locomotive's Road Number, what ever that is. I have several Short Address and several Long Addresses on my Northern Pacific Layout. When it comes to giving an address to a locomotive, Decoder Pro allows you to use two, a Long and a Short Address. In other words, as an example, I have an N.P. GP-7 with Road Number 553, this is my locos Long Address. Larry would also give the loco a Short Address as 53, in this way if he's at his club and someone is already using 553, he can run his loco under the Short Address 53. I don't run at a club; so, I don't use this method. I don't know if you can do this without the use of Decoder Pro.
 
Mark D, I believe you can do this on an NCE, also . But it's done a different way..I use NCE PowerCab, but have had no layout due to relocating (apts.) twice in 4 years. So, I forget. It might be in 'function mapping'. Or maybe you can't..Mark H
 



Back
Top