@H1000 posted:Given the large amount of MPC stuff that Eric has. These decoders probably won't work with the pull-mor motor.
Tmcc upgrades are his best option.
Interestingly, the "Pullmor" and postwar universal motors will run on AC or DC. Under DC, they just need a means to control how the DC polarity is fed to the motor to produce reversing action. That's done by adding a bridge rectifier into the circuit between then DCC decoder's motor driver outputs and the motor itself. Nowadays, there are plenty of small, reliable and low-cost bridge rectifiers available to do the job. That wasn't so in the not-so distant past.
Converting a conventional 3-rail AC or a 2-rail DC locomotive to DCC requires the same skills in wiring and soldering as TMCC and PS2/3 conversions; it's not uncharted territory or outrageously expensive -- although it's still a non-trivial investment in new electronics. And like the common proprietary systems' 3-rail upgrades, there can be some additional fabrication of chuff triggers for steamers and smoke triggers for anything without a mechanical smoke puffer. But again, this has all been done before; it's not unique to DCC.
Blunami has the ease of programming its advanced features through Bluetooth and a smartphone, even if (like me) you vastly prefer the idea of running trains with a physical remote. ESU requires a proprietary programming device to access some its advanced features, especially for loading sounds; everything else can be done with any DCC remote or from JMRI. There's also Ring Engineering's line of "Rail Pro" radio-controlled+DCC decoders; however, they need either DC power or at least DCC on the rails as a DC source, and their own power supplies aren't geared for the high-current needs of O (or G) gauge, so something like a 10-amp NCE DCC "backbone" is still needed. At that point, Soundtraxx and ESU DCC sound decoders tend to be more attractively priced in the open market.
