DCC - why not?

That's how it sounds when trying to run a DC motor on an square-wave alternating voltage (which the DCC voltage is, see

Beware as it may harm the motor, it gets quite hot.

Depends on your layout and your DC design. At my old club's layout (ca.

1953 & 1978), we had 8 mainline cabs, each with 50 bat handled DPDT toggles ($5 ea. for $250 per cab = $2000). That's also a lot of wire ($$$). I could run it all on DCC for less money if I wired it simply and didn't buy too many decoders.

Oh, boy. You haven't lived until you've trouble shot a 40 year old layout (which I did in the 1990's before my club moved). I can match you, one for one, for every possible DCC trouble shooting story with one from my DC experiences. Ever try to track down a floating block problem? Or find where a block is bleeding into another? Ever had bad toggles? Or Power Routing that doesn't? I've seen just about everything with DC problems. Not to say that DCC doesn't have it's own problems, but a big DC layout is hardly a bed of roses.

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

The hum is the DCC wave form, it's correctly called AC. It's square wave and some system will do what is called zero stretching which makes the signal either more positive or negative. This causes a DC motor to run. The hum is caused by the armature switching back and forth between the positive and negative parts of the waveform at the speed of the signal.

That's not true.

A friend of mine have had a conventional motor (Atlas N gauge) burn out that way. I test ran my new Kato F7 ABBA set on his DCC layout, and boy, they got hot.

No sir, I won't run any DC locomotives on a DCC layout anymore.

Ray Haddad wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

No. I've see a lot of people referring to "just running standard DC engines (without a decoder) on DCC layouts" in this thread (to save a few bucks on not buying decoders).

I have a few engines which has not yet had a decoder installed (I have bought the decoders - I just haven't prioritized putting them in before I have gotten enough benchwork and tracks up to make it worthwhile).

A DC engine without a decoder on a DCC layout is not something that sounds particularily *good* to me. Since no one had mentioned anything about bad sounds (or even potensial damage to motors) I asked, to find out whether this was something that just happened with *my* DCC system or whether this would be normal for a DC engine on a DCC layout.

Smile, Stein

That's not true.

Snips:

A lot of people have a bundle of engines, many which they run infrequently. The amount of time and money to decoder all of these can get very high. The main point is that these locos can be run without decoders with the systems that were mentioned.

The humming sound from non-decoder motors on DCC is normal. I've run a number of non-decoder locos on DCC and were it's noticeable I haven't found the sound to be that much of a distraction. Jon Miller's post told how this works electronically and about the potential damage to motors. You can also read about it in Digitrax's FAQ.

Scroll to the last few paragraphs on the page. Also there is a ton of information about DCC on the internet so if you are interested you can get really well informed.

J. Bright

Ype, get on the DCC question and all the idiots come out with their oddities and exceptions. It isn't that whether directional lighting is possible or not possible with DCC, it is how you handle it on the railroad. Turn on a light and if you're not able to see that light, you still don't know if the loco is live. This is the problem, not whether the lights can be lit by any particular method. Yes, I know that you can run a DC l;oco on the DCC system and no, you don't need to add additional switches to the trackwork to have the possesion of additional locos on the track! Look at any club layout and tell me that they've got enough switches to run every member's locos. No way, no how! Besides, with DC layouts, you can provide power to several locos in a consist all at the same time. Are you telling me that I've got to add in additional switches to provide additional throttles to be able to run that 3 enging consist? That's stupid! Besides, most DCC layouts use the loco number as the decoder number. How do you handle multiple railroads having the same number on a loco?

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

Controller - hand held device that contains at the minimum a speed control and a direction control. With this definition of a controller, you probably could run two locos at the same time but they will always do so at all times, a stupid restriction. I can change the era of my layout just by changing the locos and cars for the most part. This means that I've got several times the number of locos that can run on the layout (or just sit in the enginehouse area ready for service) that the layout can hold and look right. If I want to have another loco, I just go buy it and detail it. No need to work on the adding (with more additional expense) of a DCC module in the loco or anything like that. Besides, I can only run one loco at a time anyway without having troubles keeping track of the second train - autopilot trains excepted and that is just toy train operation anyway. As a result, I'm sticking with DC operation.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

You might get away using a different number -- just don't tell the police. :))

On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:44:39 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Stein R instead replied:

I've seen warnings against doing that. The track voltages are incompatible with DC motors.

-- Ray

My club -- Los Angeles Model Railroad Society -- which is in the middle of conversion to DCC is going to use four digit addressing. Each member will be assigned a block using their two digit member number as the first two numbers for their personal equipment. The last two number will usually be the last two numbers of the particular engine. If there is a duplication of the two it is up to the member to selective alternative numbers. Club locos will have the first two numbers of 99 and guests will be assigned numbers with first two numbers between 70 and 90. This will still leave some pretty good gaps available for special situations.

Jim Bright

My Digitrax controllers have two independent throttles on each. Two knobs, two direction controls, two trains at a time with fully independent control. I've used them to run two completely separate trains, two steam engines under independent control on a single train, and even two switchers working both ends of a train. Yes, it's very challenging to do that... that's _WHY_ I like it.

You know, if this actually made sense I'd be able to reply to it...

You have more locos than you can run, you've detailed them in addition to parts included from the manufacturer... and you're complaining about the cost of adding a $15 DCC chip? Hmmm... just how much do you spend on detail parts for those locomotives?

ROTFLMAO!!

That's fine.

But you know, running only one train at a time is probably the ultimate in "toy train operation". Real railroads run _trains_, not "train".

And another thing!!!!!!

It's not that hard to CHANGE the loco ID# to "whatever" for the night, and then change it back to what you usually use on your own layout at home. The Loco ID# is NOT a permanent (can't ever be changed) assignment!!

Chuck D.

"jhbright" wrote in news:9U5Eg.13760$lv.3557@fed1read12:

I do understand that. I was just pointing out that running a non- decoder engine on a DCC layout has some drawbacks that hadn't been mentioned.

"*where* it is noticable" ? Are you saying that you have run DC locos (without a decoder, or extra diodes to make a rectifier or any other such mods) which do not make a sound when exposed to the square alternating positive/negative waves of of a DCC layout ?

What kind of engines ? I have only tried 4 different types of engines -

2 Lifelike P2k types (a S1 and a GP7), 1 Athearn type (2 RS3s) and a Bachmann H15-44 Baby Trainmaster.

All of those made a quite distinct and loud hum that it seem would take quite a bit of background noise to drown out.

I am not saying that DCC is bad. I have chosen to go that way for the layout I am working on myself, even though it will be a smallish shelf point to point one-operator layout with just a handful of engines (5 or

6), and rarely will have more than two engines moving at the same time, most often probably just one engine moving at any given time.

But I did not feel like wiring up a bunch of blocks and toggle switches to be able to isolate verious parts of the layout to leave engines temporarily parked in various odd corners on the layout (or even on the main line) while I took control of another engine to do something else.

I am just hinting that maybe some DCC enthusiasts are overselling a little how seamlessly you can mix decoder and non-decoder locos on the same DCC layout.

Thanks for the digitrax FAQ link. I'll add it to my link collection.

Grin, Stein

My own layout is DCC and choose it for its flexibility and the possibility of using a computer in the future to control the layout.

Our new club exhibition layout is going to be DC operated as I am doing the wiring I am making sure that it is DCC compatible.

I am trying to get my head around block working with 2 controllers and I can see some real problems in managing the system to get trains running where you want them.

The first stage of the layout is Tumut Railway Station on 3 tables and it needs 6 blocks and 5 isolation switches so that we can run 2 trains on a simple layout.

As I am new to modeling and started with DCC if you are building a new layout I can see that using DC is just a waste of time to set it up and manage, unless you come from the old way and are making excuses on why not to change over.

Peter

Many people have given many reasons. For me, my personal take on "model railroading" involves scratchbuilding to an exact prototype. In other words, I like being able to create everything myself. I can handle electrical wiring. I can't build a DCC unit. To me, that's a plug and play black box. If you want everything to be easy, I can see why DCC appeals. I'm sure it also provides a lot more capability than DC, but I don't need that. I can also see why many people only run RTR stuff and build structures from kits. That's perfectly fine. It just isn't what I want to do. I don't think that you should dismiss this as an "excuse". Other people have different needs and preferences. I respect that. As a new entrant to the hobby, maybe you should too.

Dale

Dale spake thus:

Actually, you can. Without even knowing you, from what you've written, I can tell you that you *could* build it. At least the source end: the power supply, booster and control unit. (OK, you'd probably end up using an old PC as the control unit, and having to do some programming.) There are plenty of circuit designs floating around the Internet, and parts are readily available.

What you can't (easily) build are the decoders, but those are available pretty cheaply anyhow. So maybe scratchbuilders can be satisfied with DCC as well.