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Reply to "DCS Remote Thumbweel Skiping"

gunrunnerjohn posted:
Engineer-Joe posted:
gunrunnerjohn posted:

IMO, the thumbwheel is the biggest failure of the DCS remote.  They should have spend the extra ten cents and gone with an optical encoder design instead of the discrete contact based design that quickly deteriorates!

I have 3 DCS remotes. Only one, had the thumbwheel in need of replacing. It was my first and well over 10 years old (15?). The other still two work perfectly.

I think heavy thumb pressing can accelerate their demise. Our grandkids have played with mine since they were old enough to run the trains. So I know that they have had some good use and still work well. I think the design of the wheel housing is a weak spot.

 My girl presses our remotes upstairs so hard, I could hear the plastic stressing. After wearing out a few remotes and telephones, I tried to coach her on not pressing so hard. I think some users get confused when a remote takes longer to do it's job? So they press harder to get a reaction.

I'm not talking about breaking the thumbwheel supports, I'm talking about the encoding contacts on the thumbwheel.  An optical encoder would allow smooth control, not the up and down random jumping of the speed that the DCS remote does.  I have four of them, and all but one have lousy thumbwheel control.  Contact cleaner fixes them temporarily, but they quickly develop bad habits again.

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