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.
I understood what you were saying. My thumbwheels work fine in that regard. I have never had to clean them. Maybe you should swap yours out? Were they bought used? Well, even my used remote works perfectly. 
The one wheel that wore out did start to skip. I do know what you're describing here.
The very post above this talks about pushing at an angle so I figured that's where this complaining would lead to. 
Junior posted:I concur with GRJ.....optical is they way to go!! I use Lionel's TMCC with remote to control my Smoke Fluid Loader (the DCS Remote was just NOT cutting it with this accessory) and it works "slicker than snot"
. GRJ even confirmed that the Lionel remote's red dial is optically controlled (this was in a OGRR Forum post quite a while ago regarding getting my Smoke Fluid Loader to work).
And when I add engines to DCS, I have to push the DCS remote's thumb wheel at an angle to get the remote to accept a letter. Pressing the thumb wheel straight down does not work for me/my remote.
Just my 2 cents......
I get a kick out of comparing with the big red knob on the TMCC remote control. Mine works but it's worse than my DCS versions. Maybe it's just the older TMCC engines I run? 
The knob wonders all over before the engines react and then they usually over react to speed commands.
