@Keystone posted:Is DCS signal loss as a result of incandescent bulbs new or is there something unique to the circuit board's of these MTH premier cars? I recall the need for the inline choke but IIRC that was limited to passenger car incandescent to LED light conversions.
There have been issues with incandescent lighted cars if they had a regulator circuit that placed capacitance across the rails. I know a lot of passenger cars, not just MTH, have caused issues with DCS. Many TMCC and Legacy locomotives will affect the DCS signal as well. I've also seen some Atlas cars that just had incandescent lighting with no capacitors, etc. yet somehow they were nuking the DCS signal. The 22uh choke fixed those as well.
It's really a simple fact, anything that has a low impedance to a 3.27mhz signal that is connected across the track power will reduce the DCS signal strength. The fairly universal fix has always been to insert a 22uh (or higher value) choke in series with the power lead of the offending item. This increases the impedance at 3.27mhz of that item to around 450 ohms + it's natural impedance and minimizes the impact on the DCS signal.
