The digital model railway with DCC, Motorola format and mfx actually belong to the past if you use CTC.

Unfortunately, new locomotives are usually delivered with digital decoders. And the manufacturers put a lot of effort into adding many nice sound effects to these digital decoders. So it is obvious that one or the other CTC customer would like to have these sounds available when operating with CTC as well.

That is why there is the possibility to connect a CTC module between the track and the classic digital decoder. Of course, this requires enough space in the locomotive, because now both the old digital decoder and a CTC module have to be installed.

Currently, only the DCC protocol is supported by the CTC modules. Since all current Märklin mfx decoders are so-called multi-protocol decoders, they can also be controlled via DCC. Support for the old Motorola format or mfx will be added if required.

"Mini Control Center" for Testing

For an initial test, you can also operate the CTC-Loco-Module as a mini control center. To do this, connect a track (or rolling test stand) to the motor output of the CTC-Loco-Module and leave the DCC decoder in the locomotive. Then connect a direct current source to the track input of the CTC-Loco-Module. It is also worthwhile to connect a support capacitor to the CTC-Loco-Module.

With the locomotive on the track or rolling test stand, you can now configure and test it before installing it in the locomotive.

Locomotive Installation

When installing the locomotive, the CTC module is connected to the two track connections as usual. There are now two options for connecting the digital decoder:

• In the simplest case, the digital decoder is then connected to the motor output of the CTC module instead of the motor.
• Alternatively, the digital decoder can also be connected to two half-bridges. Then it is even possible to control the motor via CTC and simultaneously retrieve sounds from the digital decoder.

For lighting and other switching functions, you have the free choice in both cases whether to leave them on the digital decoder or connect them to the CTC module.

Note: The CTC-Loco-Module-H0a cannot currently be used for DCC. All other CTC-Loco-Modules are suitable for DCC.

Illustrated conversion instructions will follow shortly.

Configuration

How to configure a digital decoder is described in the operating instructions Chapter 4.6 - Config - Connecting DCC Decoder .