Herr Sieber and his wife from her kitchen

Nobody who knows about mfx decoder is made by of...?

Hello,

the design and development is done by Märklin.

Who is soldering them together I do not know.

rgds

Stephan

That´s way i did asked question to create this topic.
Still it´s not Märklin who produce.
The design and development was in coperation with ESU.

Didn't they also approach Uhlenbrock regarding the new ones?
My memory might be bad - I'm old, you know...

But since the CS2 hardware is designed by Kontron,
maybe they also have something to do with the new mfx/mfx+ decoder designs, at least the hardware bits...

No worries - let's move on now...

Then the sounds would be better.
It seems the Trix decoders with Selectrix were and are made by Doehler & Haass.

I'm pretty sure it's not ESU, it's not Uhlenbrock, it's not D&H.

Better to ask Märklin directly...

I guess we'll have to live with not knowing for now!

Hi Anders,

You're right. Of course Marklin doesn't want us to know where those cheap motors and decoders come from. They must be made in China, which is the only thing we can be sure about. My guess would be that whenever they need new motors or decoders, they follow the standard procedure that many companies typically use to buy parts they need: specifications and standards are clearly defined, and suppliers are invited to make an offer. Of course the required standards have to be met, but the price probably plays a big role as well.
If ten thousand decoders or motors are ordered, chances are that not all of them really meet the standards, and anyway, Marklin can't perform a complex test on them before the locomotives are sold. The company claims that every locomotive is tested before it leaves the factory, but even if we assume that's true, not every bug is detected in a very short test run. I had one new locomotive (30430) that immediately started running at full speed on a short test track before I even got a chance to register it on my MS2. I hit the floor and caught it with one hand at the end of the track, just in time. Eventually I managed to register it and now it works fine, but if you order tens of thousands of parts from suppliers, you'll have some problems.
In the past (almost) every part of Marklin products was made in their factory in Goppingen, but that was in the last century, before the global economy ...
This year Mr Sieber has said that 30-40 per cent of each locomotive is made in Goppingen, as that factory is the only one that produces metal parts for Marklin now. They don't want the zinc pest in their products again after their disastrous experiences in China some years ago. The electronic parts and most motors are still Chinese-made because Marklin can't make a profit otherwise. We all know how Mr Pluta saved so much money! The factory in Hungary probably produces most plastic parts, and takes care of assembly as well as painting. According to what I have read, quality control at the factory in Hungary isn't very good, and this has been confirmed by three brand-new locomotives that I had to send back to Goppingen for repainting last year.

Most of their new products are still very good, but nowadays buyers need to be lucky when they buy Marklin ...

Regards,
Marc

I'm sorry I don't see the connection.

Maybe I don't actually understand what this thread is for. I thought it was to try to find out who makes the mfx decoders, but I think I know now what the real point is.

I wont be drawn into it.

I did stand an question if somebody knows who produce Märklins mfx decoder of today.
Märklin will and won´t answer about it.
It was same about 3 pole motor in complete silence from Märklin.
We know(?) China produce cheap 3 pole motor and what about mfx decoder??

I got one of my locos which has a mSD decoder in it and put it on my programming track. My ESU Lokprogrammer was not able to read CV8 (and was not able to read the decoder profile from the decoder either - no surprises there!), so I tried my CS2. The CS2 reads CV8 on the mSD decoder as NMRA Manufacturer ID 131, which is Trix.

Now that is not to say that another 3rd party does not make these decoders, just that as far as Marklin is concerned, these decoders are made in house.

So, does ESU make all its own components?

Nowadays all manufacturers outsource at least some of their production, whether it be the packing, documentation, or even the finished articles themselves.

They also have no legal obligation to tell us what is made in house and what is not.

ESU is an electronic company which do produce own decoder for the model railway.
I have never seen or heard about if Märklin do it same way with theirs own system.
I didn´t found either too about old system like CU6021.
It stand behind only made of Märklin in Germany.

Hello again,

Well, obviously they thought of this trick, but the manufacturer ID helps us to find out that Marklin deliberately leaves its customers in the dark. We all know that TRIX hasn't actually manufactured anything for a long time. In 2009, when the Trix factory in Nuremberg was closed, there were only 50 staff members left, so they must have outsourced pretty much everything by then. In my eyes, the Trix manufacturer ID on the new decoders is simply a bad joke, a fake identity. Do they think their customers are dumb?

No company is obliged to name its suppliers and outsourcing is common, but Marklin forgets that customers have no obligation to keep on buying either. All of this has destroyed a lot of the trust that customers used to have in Marklin. The company will only sell less by being so secretive. I still buy newly released Marklin locomotives, but from this year I have decided to avoid the expensive models and stick to a few medium-priced ones, which helps me to save money.
It seems that sales are down at the moment, though they have some pretty good excuses for that as well.

Best regards

Mark

Marklin made them. Why are you so obsessed with finding which subcontractor in particular. The fact they are not named is probably because it's a small company no one has heard of.

Good one!

I've got a few veryfried decoders produced by myself too!

For the cricketing fans on the forum - "What a catch" as Ritchie would says.

I'm sorry this is off topic but I couldn't help myself.

In another life, I did a lot of reverse engineering for my employer (a large US semiconductor manufacturer)
This had various technical to legal goals in mind (i.e. from qualification of subcontractors products or evaluation of competitors technological capabilities or even detection of patent violations by said competitors)

So the question of identifying Märklin's decoders supplier(s) is ringing like a interesting investigative challenge.

I took a quik look at the decoder of my most recent purchase (the E44 newest edition)

One thing is sure is that gerat care has been taken to **conceal** the origin of the design and to make it difficult for ordinary hackers to reverse engineers
Both sides are now covered with a type of opaque white lacker, making it almost impossible to folllow the tracks by shining light through the epoxy substrate.
Unfortunately, I no longer have that nifty little X-ray from my former employer at my disposal...which would have been interesting.

There only one readable marking, black over white : "OK" which is likely applied after (successful?) testing .
No need to be a genius to figure that one out!

But one thing I can assess (from only one sample of course..) with certainty is that the quality of the assembly is good:
- Automated pick and place of components
- good control of reflow soldering process (no knicks or craks)
- the pitch is **not very challenging tough**, it would have been state of the art 15 years ago...(I have seen "micro" decoders from Zimo and ESU that were much tighter, almost as challenging as a those found is Smartphones!)

But there is one point above all that caught my attention: the use of gold (or iridium?) plated contacts on the testing/programming pads and the 22 pin connector.

I don't think that finding the value of CV8 would tell us anything significant...what would be interesting would be to reverse engineer the micro processor chip (which usually carries the manufaturer logo)

Buat that implies tools and chemicals that I dont have here to decapsulate the device, microphotograph it and eventually etch some parts to look at the manufacturing process charateristics like feature sizes, type of devices, number of inter-connect layers, etc.

And most of all I no longer have the data base I had at my disposal at xxxx corp, and I haven't done any of this for the last 20 years...

So sorry Anders, at this point I must be a useless Troll too!
I hope I will not disturb you too much in your sleeps!

It´s big difference to know who made mfx decoder.
It´s wrong to write "made of Märklin",if Märklin is not who produce mfx decoder.
To understand what is right,you must answer correct and truth.

Maybe an answer?

Googled to: marklin brand decoder oem supplier

http://www.tulsanmra.org/resources/DCC_Install.pdf

Googled to: digital plus lenz marklin

http://www.lenzusa.com/1newsite1/Introduction.html

"The break through was the progress in micro-electronic industry. With the small micro-processor development a new world of possibilities opened up for controlling trains. These developments led to the DCC system, that is the basis of the system we now have, which was introduced in 1988.
At this time I designed for Marklin and Arnold. Lenz, GmbH was co-designer for the Marklin AC system, now called the Motorola packet format. The first product designed and developed by Lenz Elektronik was a circuit for a Marklin product."

Googled to: decoder marklin mfx supplier esu

http://www.dccwiki.com/Electronic_Solutions_Ulm
http://www.dccwiki.com/Manufacturer:Marklin

So...

The history then should be, MFX starts with Lenz and now it's an OEM manufactured/supplied by ESU.

Cheers,

Walter

Yeah, that's really old information. Marklin and ESU fell out with each other, their relationship ended in tears. ESU no longer make Marklin controllers or their decoders.......

Which is why Goofy opened this thread - he wants to know who replaced ESU!

That's how modern production is.

Still it's valid to ask who makes it, where is it made, how many hours do the workers work per day and per week and how much do they get paid.
In many cases you won't get official answers.