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You're comparing apple and oranges! $29.99 is for the "Smail", which is a Tortoise with a built in DCC decoder. ModelTrainsStuff currently doesn't show the regular Tortoise in a single pack, but the 6 pack is $89.99, or $15 a piece.

2 turns off analog conversion, 6 does not.

What CV 21 and 22 do is allow the functions to respond to the consist address, you are not actually turning them on or off with the CV setting. The functions normally respond to the original address of the loco, even when it is in an advanced consist. The easiest way to turn off the mars light...

No it cannot, it is for solenoid and stall switch machines, not servos.

Yes, you can have as multiple decoders on the same address.

It's both.

Yes you can. The Bachmann booster has an opto-isolated input so it can be used on any system; however I don't know why you would want to unless you already have one. The NCE SB5 Smart Booster has the same power (5 amps), costs less, and gives you true walk around capability (you can unplug the...

Well, there are many different track arrangements that incorporate a wye, but with just a simple single track wye, there really aren't that many options, you can either gap one leg of the wye or you can gap one tail of the wye. In most situations you want to do a tail because then you don't...

Actually, in my opinion, that is a better way of doing it. Auto-reversers detect a problem and fix it, but it's better to prevent the problem to begin with.

Note that with this diagram the gap on the left is only necessary if the turnouts you use cause a short on the leg for which they are not aligned. This applies to many, but not all, power-routing turnouts.

I did not word my previous reply the best that I could, but to clarify, I am not saying there won't be a voltage drop across the resistor, but the resistor value has little effect on the voltage drop across the diode. It's not like an incandescent lamp where you know the current and you adjust...

Whoa! For the small LED's we use in locomotive lighting, 126 ma is a LOT of current. Most of them have a max of around 20ma. Also, the current rating of an LED is it's MAX rating, you generally want to run them at less than that. Additionally, the resistor does not drop the voltage, the LED...

The fact that it only does it with the wireless throttle and the loco works fine with the tethered one also points to it being a controller problem and not the decoder. The first thing to do is make sure you have the most recent version of the wireless controller firmware. I remember when...

Actually, there is quite a bit of difference. The ones in that link will work, but I would not use them. They are simple rheostat throttles - a transistor throttle will give you much better control, especially at low speeds. I don't have any experience with the Railmaster 1300 or 1370, but...

DC only engines do not have a decoder.

No, you DO NOT have to run both leads from the light back to the decoder. You can connect the lead currently running to the tender to the white function output and leave the other lead attached to the frame (assuming that frame is attached to one of the rail pickups) and the light will be...

Your passing siding does not have to accommodate your longest train, when you have opposing trains the siding only has to be able to accommodate the shorter of the two trains.

All those "hot box" detectors know is when a train passes a certain point. The system crusader27529 has developed counts and keeps track of the axles entering and leaving a block so that it can report block occupancy.

In the early days of DCC, that feature really helped with the adoption of DCC (as a side note, Lenz also has this feature and NCE actually used to support it). Decoders were quite expensive and few early adopter could afford to equip their entire fleets of loco at once, so this allowed them to...

I have never seen a manufacturer recommend testing their DCC equipped locos on DC first. There's nothing wrong with doing that, there's just no reason for it and I don't think most DCC users do it. I do have a DC test track; however, because I do test any DCC ready loco I get on DC before...