Has anyone had any experience with Zimo electronic products ( their dcc system and accessories )? How well do they perform? http://mrsonline.net
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Hi Nikkormat,
I personally have not had any experience with Zimo products but I have heard from multiple sources that their speed control is excellent (maybe some of the best on the market). Here is a comparison video that someone has posted on YouTube:
Scott K.
Austin, TX
Does the MP-15 use the same horizontal drive as the SW-8? If not, then it would be like trying to compare apples to oranges. If both share the horizontal drive then the ZIMO speed control is very impressive.
KOH's uses ZIMO in their latest Challenger offering and it is quite impressive. Actually there are twin decoders....one in the loco and one in the tender and they operate together or independently. The loco will run with all lights, sounds and functions without the tender and the tender has lights and sounds without being attached to the loco. Very leading edge in my book.
Butch
Originally Posted by up148:
Does the MP-15 use the same horizontal drive as the SW-8? If not, then it would be like trying to compare apples to oranges. If both share the horizontal drive then the ZIMO speed control is very impressive.
KOH's uses ZIMO in their latest Challenger offering and it is quite impressive. Actually there are twin decoders....one in the loco and one in the tender and they operate together or independently. The loco will run with all lights, sounds and functions without the tender and the tender has lights and sounds without being attached to the loco. Very leading edge in my book.
Butch
Yes, both the MP-15 and the SWs have the horizontal drives. They are the only ones to my knowledge.
There was a guy named Ken Rice who used to post regularly on the old Atlas forum. He used the Zimo decoders and he really liked them. I personally have no experience with their products but I never heard anything negative about them.
Which QSI decoder is in the MP15? I have Sunset E7s and F units that came with QSI Titans that exhibit exactly the same less-than-walking speed behavior right out of the box with no speed table modification. Certainly better than the example in the video.
I'd say the Atlas horizontal gear drive and the Sunset horizontal belt drive are more similar than not, compared to a vertical drive.
and the Atlas AEM7/ALP44 also had a horizontal drive.
This is most likely the OEM QSI decoder that came in the Atlas O MP15 (I have one and it sounds the same and exhibits the same speed characteristics), which would be a pre-Titan generation of the decoder. The QSI Titan was released around 2011 and these Atlas MP15s came out way earlier. My Atlas O MP15DC was from the 2009 run.
Scott K.
Austin, TX
As far as I'm concerned they have the best motor control there is. Even with the twin vertical motor drives they can be configured so that it takes several seconds for each motor to turn one revolution if you use one decoder for each motor. One decoder for both motors doesn't work as well because of the differences in individual motors. I'm hoping 3rd Rail will talk to these folks when QSI goes belly up soon.
Zimo is about as good as it gets when it comes to boards. Their products are quite reliable and the motor control is excellent. They also handle dirty track and power interruptions without shutting down. Sound is a matter of who made and programmed the sound files, as independent users make many of their sound programs, not Zimo itself. I'm not sure how easy it is to get US loco sound files from them, as most of their products seem to be aimed at European users.
I use a number of their products in G gauge, where they have outperformed both Massoth and NCE boards. Haven't tried them in O gauge yet, since most of my engines already came with QSI Sound.
Here are some videos of Zimo boards, albeit in G gauge.
