TT Scale. The Ideal Scale.

Jusl learning about all the things DCC and have a question. My ESU Loksound Micro decoder came wrapped into a pretty thick clear plastic shrink-wrap. My concern is with heat dissipation. Should I remove the wrap befor installation? Or, at least perforate it to increase the air flow? I also bought an MRC sound decoder (less than half the pice of ESU, but with less functions and a generic "large modern diesel" sound), and that one came unwrapped...

Most manuals say not to remove any wrapping- ESU lokpilots I own have all come with such a covering, and suffer no ill effects. It can make fitting easier too, as bare metal in the model is less of a threat. That said, my couple of H0 loksound decoders had no wrapping, but they were both factory fitted (Roco and Bachmann Branch-Line respectively).

You will no doubt remove the warranty along with the wrap if you do cut it off. That said I have removed the shrink wrap from a couple of them myself, usually to get them into a smaller space, or in the case of the mini tsunami in my GP-9 to try to get rid of some of the heat too. I found on that one that it did have a small heat sink on the back so I just mounted it up against a much larger aluminum plate and that helped a lot in keeping it cooler. When that one was overheating it would stop running, flash both lights on and off several times then just go to sleep. I also discovered I had wires rubbing on the flywheels, which was overloading the motor and no doubt adding to the overheating. All solved now and it runs much better.

Chris

Thanks for the comments, guys! I am planning to leave th shrink wrap on, but the heat generation potential is worrying me. I guess, I'll try it out and see what happens.