Joe Daddy
C & SF, my obsession
Registered: October 2006
Location: Colorado
Posts: 152
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Review Date: Sun November 30, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $550.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Powerful Radio Thottle, built in serial interface
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Cons:
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Poor documentation, Complex, clumsy operation
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I purchased my NCE Pro because of the Radio Throttle and everything I'd read about how truly easy and intuitive the system is to use.
SO far the NCE has not lived up to the hype on the easy to use front. I find the device to be clumsy at best and difficult to learn, due in some measure to the poorly written documentation. Simple things like how to power the system up and down, where to connect the antenna, stuff you'd think should be right there in the documentation, well some zealots will tell you it is thre, I'll tell you it is almost there, certainly not clearly laid out.
I can compare the radio throttle to the CVP, NCE is actually easier to use than the CVP and has fewer quircks like the infernal click the knob to reverse button. CVP's throttle also lacks on the throttle feedback about speed (Oh, sure you can press some buttons to find out what it is, but you, well it is really clumsy and complicated)
Comparing the NCE Radio Throttle to the Digitraxx falls deeply into NCE's favor, mainly choice of knob &/or buttons & not having to plug it in to capture or change locomotives is HUGE!
But comparing the NCE throttle to the simple yet incredibly powerful LH100 from Lenz leaves me with post partum depression. Even with the umbilical cord, the LH100 is so much easier and way faster to use and the 3.6 upgrade makes it even more powerful,yet retains the simple operation.
Then there is the way NCE deals with layout power. Plug in the NCE and it roars to life. Surely there must be away to configure to power on with layout not powered up, but if it is there, I've not found it. I don't want the layout on until I tell it to from a throttle.
Overall the NCE is a good system, but there is a learning curve. What may be intuitive to one fellow may not be intuitive to me. For example, on the Lenz, press the red button and power goes off. Press it again and it comes on. On the NCE, press the red button once and the train under control stops, press it two more times and the layout powers down. To power up or resume operation, you press the enter key, (so long as you have not inadvertently pressed the red button again.) All of this monkey motion on the power key is, in my opine, unnecessarily complex, then there is the problem of NO layout emergency stop. Lenz allows you to easily put your entire layout into emergency stop with a simple way to quickly resume. Not even a capability with the NCE.
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Joe Daddy
My model railroad blog and home of a few of the many lessons learned as a Newbie.
http://wwwjoe-daddy.blogspot.com
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