Question on several trains on one layout

I agree. Not trendy. Just different. In some cases the advantages outweigh the cost. In others they don't.

I'm hoping that before I make the big jump, something new combining DCC features/functionality with wireless communications similar to "bluetooth", in a tiny chip, will come.

Ron

Reply to
RonMcF
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From my other post:

All of us who have been in the hobby more than 7 or 8 years cut our teeth on DC. But when DCC came along, many of us gladly chucked it for the freedom offered. Others didn't see the need for it and stayed with DC.

Mike Tennent "IronPenguin"

Reply to
Mike Tennent

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

Even though I'm a recent convert to the DCC cult. I'll give this point a big AMEN! I've been wrestling with computers and their manuals for 30 years and some DCC documentation still left me scratching my head and wishing for a decent example or two.

Another amen. I don't think perfect solutions exist either. We all have to pick the compromise we can live with the easiest. I do hope that as DCC matures, the manufacturers realize that railroaders are not necessarily computer geeks and start writing docs the average guy can understand. That alone might do more for the acceptance of the technology than all the gee whize features they can add.

Took the words right out of my mouth! (Another RAH fan?)

Reply to
Norman Morgan
I

If you have a Digitrax system my heart goes out to you. Digitrax pubs are some of the worst examples of technical writing for the layman that I have ever seen. I am a Digitrax user and I adore the product. But the pubs are a mystery to me even after more than 40 years of working with electronics and electronic equipment. The users manual for a Cincinnati-Milacron CNC machining center was easier to read and understand than the manual for the DT-400. Now that I have had my DT-400 for some time, I can say that it is a great deal simpler than the controller on the Cincinnati machine. However, from trying to read the manual when I first got it, I would not have thought so. IMO, the problem is not lack of information, it is a complete lack of logical organization of the information. That makes all the difference.

CH

Reply to
Captain Handbrake

No Ron, it's not an issue of ignorance. You hit on the magic word: "DESIGN"

I have no intention whatever of wasting my time and energy designing and building a DC control system that will operate as well as my DCC system that I can plug in and run.

CAN I do it? Absolutely, yes

WILL I do it? Absolutely not. Never again. I'd just as soon muck out my own septic tank with a bucket and rope.

CH.

Reply to
Captain Handbrake

Seems to be the thing with hitech things, more features, how to use them is a trade secret. Best manuals I've seen are from Serif, and even those could use a few more pages of examples.

ROTFLMAO! (Lennie)

I'll be off line permanently on the ninth of this month, SBC decided that $30 a month wasn't enough, $50 is more than I'm going to pay and I haven't found a decent local ISP, but more because of the phone lines. Thirty miles from Milwaukee, and 1000 miles from civilization. Phone lines are ancient, the phone company doesn't want to spend any money keeping things up. Tried Road Runner twice now, they screwed it up both times, no sense in giving them installation fees for nothing a third time. (Everything is done through their website, which does no good when the user name they gave me also belongs to someone in Milwaukee.) 12 hours between installation and me taking the modem back to them. SBC is highly variable, on a good dry day, I get reasonable D/L speeds, if the humidity is up, I might as well be on dialup.

Greybeard

(I'm not really against DCC, but don't like anyone posting that it's the way to go because you can maintain a higher level of ignorance. It has it's place, but won't be on my layout.)

Reply to
Greybeard

No problem, Larry. I didn't mean to sound antagonistic. It seems like the DC/DCC thing is starting to border on religion.

My feelings are simple - I grew up on DC multiple cab control and grew more and more frustrated with it. No matter how many times I operated, if I wanted to do some switching - say a turn using two engines, or just simply running a freight around while I operated a local and did switching, I'd miss a toggle and things would come to a halt while I corrected the TRACK, not the engine. Or I'd have to place an engine precisely where It HAD to be because of the block wiring, not because I wanted it there.

When DCC came along, I jumped at it and it ended that frustration. I could run the engines, not the track. It's just that simple.

I didn't care about price. I didn't care if I had to take a couple of hours to install a decoder. I didn't care if the manuals were poorly written or it took several steps to program a decoder.

I could finally run my engines, not my track. That out weighed everything else for me.

Mike Tennent "IronPenguin"

Reply to
Mike Tennent

in article d037m0$cjp$ snipped-for-privacy@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au, Greg Rudd at snipped-for-privacy@usyd.edu.au wrote on 3/1/05 6:15 PM:

I don't think the red button simulates anything other than "Oh SH**!"

I've also seen the human DC failure mode with several more or less inexperienced operators leaving a block switch set wrong and the power pack associated with it left on at a relatively high speed. A loco crosses the boundary and takes off! Mad panic to get to and flip a block switch or reduce the throttle.

The basic rule is Murphy's: anything which can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.

Reply to
Edward A. Oates

Yep, it's a volume thing, but it's also economics. It only took about 5 years to go from a $40-$50 decoder to a $20 decoder, and that was 6 years ago. Since the evidence suggests that DCC is ever more growing in popularity, why hasn't the price dropped any further? IMHO, the manufacturers are happy with the current cost of $20 because the market is growing with it. It would be stupid of them to charge $10 for the same object when the market will buy what they make for $20.

Oh, it's not so bad at our club. We're in an old ammo bunker, and our layout room is 50' x 130' with no interior walls or posts. The sound, provided it's not too loud, kind of fades in and out as the trains go by. But I'm sure we'll have to have a regulation to determine how loud they can be before too long. One guy wants to run his stuff at full volume, and that's just too much.

It's a volume thing. LOL (sorry, couldn't resist!)

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************
Reply to
Pac Man

Well, I've used an old Troller and an MRC Golden ThrottlePack on my Zephyr. Those have to be pushing 20-30 years and they worked all right for me.

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************
Reply to
Pac Man

People keep saying that programming decoders is somehow difficult. For novices, only a couple of things need programming: the locomotive address and CV29 if the default won't do. Since new decoders seem to all come with 2 digit addressing and 128 speed steps all set up out of the box, only the address must be set.

Once you get the hang of it, then setting start / mid / max voltage (where available) is next, followed by acceleration and deceleration.

Then the user is pretty familiar with things and the "difficult" part starts since there are no apparent standards if you have decoders from different companies: speed tables, lighting effects, sound settings, etc.

But when I got my first decoder (Digitrax DH121 back in '98 or so), I had it installed in a blue box Athearn GP38 in about 1/2 hour, running on address 3 (the default) a few minutes later, and a new address, start voltage, etc. about 1/2 hour after that.

Once you get into more advanced programming, the "difficult" part is documenting what you have done for each locomotive. I used the PR1 program for a while till I finally shot my old Windows PC and went all Mac. I just created a form in Word (for Macintosh :) with the major CVs and keep them in a notebook. That way, if a decoder breaks (only one NCE fried itself so far and they just replaced it and sent me a couple of prototype stationary decoders for my trouble; excellent service from those folks), it is easy to program the replacement.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Greybeard at snipped-for-privacy@Nowhere.moose wrote on 3/1/05 9:04 PM:

Reply to
Edward A. Oates

Other than throttle to command station communications, I think that the signal via the track works fine. Dirty track breaks that communications, but more importantly powers down the decoder causing jerky operation. Radio communications to the decoder don't solve that problem. Clean track does.

Even better, I'd like to see both motor and decoders designed with a capacitor to hold power up for 1/4 second or so: just a little power buffer to deal with very short disconnects from power.

Ed

in article d04196$1ok$ snipped-for-privacy@nnrp.waia.asn.au, RonMcF at snipped-for-privacy@ron.com wrote on

3/2/05 1:46 AM:

Reply to
Edward A. Oates

Two things: 1). Ever heard of double track? And 2). Try actually reading my entire sentence before you reply. Note that I said, "He doesn't need passing sidings to enjoy all DCC has to offer." I did not say that DCC elminates the need for passing sidings. But even a simple switching layout can be improved by using DCC since one could have two or more active locos running around. The original point was that "Greybeard" stated that the original guy should not buy DCC until he had a large layout with passing sidings. My counterpoint was that this is not true.

Sigh. I said, "If he went with analog with one cab per loop, he'd be unable to (run multiple trains on one loop)." Note the "one cab per loop" part of that. If you only have one cab per loop, you are not going to be controlling mulitple trains on one loop. You would have to have multiple cabs on a loop to have mulitple trains on a loop (unless you run multiple trains off of one cab, which is silly).

Um, wouldn't that be pretty silly thing to do? I don't know about you, but I have yet to see two perfectly matched trains running on the same loop under one cab before. Eventually, the fast one will catch up to the slow one and couple to the rear.

Wow, so you'd only convert to DCC when it was the last thing on earth (there is always something else to buy in model railroading). Interesting point of view...

I've spent 6 years on a large club DCC layout, 8 on a large club DC layout, 5 years on a home DC layout, and 2 on my home DCC layout. I've wired cabs and installed decoders. I've troubleshot "floating blocks" and smoked a decoder. I know quite a bit about DC and DCC.

Most of these folks are, in my experience, older modelers who refuse to change. The guy with the nails for block toggles in my example above still prefers Mantua hook and loop couplers for pity's sake.

Oh, I'm aware of what's possible. I know about all the complicated things you would have to do to get it even close to what DCC can do. The better question is, why? DC is great for a single operator/single train operation. Once you get beyond that, DCC looks better and better.

Paul A. Cutler III

************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************
Reply to
Pac Man

I've been in the hobby 46 years, started with Ma AC, went to DC, HFC, DCC and now back to DC with a DCC cab option. It's not that I don't see a need for it but rather that for my layout DC is simpler and cheaper. Once the layout is reasonably complete I will go looking for a half-way solution.

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Greg.P.

DC is DC, it doesn't matter one bit what kind of pack produces it.

That said, the problem is that VERY few model RR packs produce anything like true DC.

Most all have some form of 'ripple', either at 60 Hz. or 120 Hz.

Many cheap or early ones are just half or full wave rectified, with effective 100% ripple. This is 'pulsating DC'. If from the usual full wave rectifier, it's at 120 Hz. Some packs could switch out half the rectifier, and produce 60 Hz. ... calling this 'pulse power'. It did help balky locos move more slowly, often with a 60 Hz. 'hum' and increased motor heating. It could also weaken some early and poor permanent magnet motor fields.

Newer packs often mix some DC in with the ripple. some start with 100% ripple for better low speed performance, and decrease the 'pulse' as they add some pure DC at higher throttle settings. This makes for quieter, smoother operation with less motor heating.

Newer still, electronic, ones usually inject some kind of pulse (spike) into the waveform in varying ways and to varying degrees. As previously, often the amount of this varies with the throttle setting.

All this NON 'DC' noise (ripple, pulses, spikes) often 'confuses' any electronic devices placed 'downstream' of the power pack.

Dan Mitchell ============

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

I think that period between starting and "getting the hang of it" is what they are complaining about. Thirty years of deciphering Unix man pages made the decoder programming instructions seem rather tame. I can see where the first one can be a bit overwhelming to those not used to interpreting terse/barebone instructions.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Newhouse

snipped-for-privacy@pimin.rockhead.com (Paul Newhouse) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I always thought it was you pointy-head Unix types who WROTE those twisted docs for the rest of us!

Hablo solo un poco Unix

Reply to
Norman Morgan

Yeah, maybe it helps that I built my first computer in 1960 and was in R&D at Singer (Friden), Ampex, Memorex, and Oracle. When designing new hardware at the first three, the "instruction" book was talking to an engineer who said things like, this flip-flop controls the nand gate in the adder. So to me, even the Digitrax books are decipherable.

But that said, the basic functions are simply loading 8 bits into a register, and of the basic ones, only CV29 it a bit function; the others, address, max/min/mid, acceleration / deceleration are simple values between

0 and 255 (0 and xFF). Once you figure out how to get into programming mode and avoid programming all your locos at once, and you figure out how to set the address, the others are pretty easy. At first, the newcomer to DCC needs to avoid reading about all the lighting, function matrices, sound tables, and sound functions. Just learn how to get into programming mode with only a single loco on the track, and how to pick a register, and set a value into it.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com, Paul Newhouse at snipped-for-privacy@pimin.rockhead.com wrote on 3/2/05 12:01 PM:

Reply to
Edward A. Oates

Only the man pages, most of the books are pretty good. *8->

Reply to
Paul Newhouse

Ed,

You are wasting your time preaching to the choir. I agree, it ain't that difficult ... for you, me and lots of others.

There are people at the club who have little computer experience and have done little that would have prepared them for programming a decoder. They my not be rocket scientists but, they ain't the dimmest bulb in the pack either. They seem very intimidated at first. After they have been walked through it once, some times twice, they are explaining it to others as if they built it from scratch.

It's that first, "get your feet wet", experience that they have a little trouble with. I don't identify with it very well but, I have learned to recognize it.

One of the die hard, "DCC makes no sense", guys at the club, who is a guppy for switching operations, got converted when he realized he didn't have to clean the track very 20 minutes. DCC puts full power to the track all the time. Now he is at the club most Friday nights with a soldering iron and a new engine to decoderize. But, he was a hard sell for a long time. Now you frequently find him with two handhelds, each controlling two switchers, a rabid convert. There are others who just say, "costs too much to convert not doin' it". The club will never be all DCC, just not gonna happen. On analog nights I just find other things to do *8->

Paul

Reply to
Paul Newhouse

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