Lee, in reading the Command Control book by Neil B., and also by reviewing the catalogs/magazine adds, they are pretty close in price. Lionel’s TMCC is cheaper for the start up, but everything added is more $$$. DCS has much of what is needed and it is less cost for additions. That said, DCS is proprietary and so all future purchases are the higher $$ of MTH, whereas, TMCC is shared and so Atlas, Lionel, etc., make engines that are command and you can find a better variety in command.
Now, as mentioned from above, I have not purchased the caponents for my Command System as of yet and only have a few pieces that are TMCC equipped. So, the information I state is purely from an observational/read it in a book, etc. There has been some speculation that the Legacy information was to be proprietary, but I do not know. If it is, it would increase the price per engine as compared to getting command from say, a K-Line engine, or a separate board from TAS.
I would say that you are best served by visiting layouts as Jon has mentioned, and go for the system that best suits your style. For me, I have prepared my wiring sceme for DCS, but am installing TMCC. I do not plan to get DCS, but this leaves the option open without having to worry about rewiring a layout.
Thanks for the compliments, it’s been a labor of fun. It is in our basement, once the kids were finally gone I was allowed to take over and it’s absolutely ideal for trains, I’m fortunate to have a very supportive wife.
I have to agree with you about the track, I think it looks fine. I don’t use a computer aided track planner and I found that having a good inventory of the various sizes of MTH Realtrax worked great for me. This is our first attempt at building a permanent layout and I was all about making it easy for me, using that track and DCS made it easy. It’s not for everybody, I’m comfortable with it and have no regrets.
Well I sent that movie to my wife before Christmas and said that this is what I want to do with the basement, and she said I was crazy. Do you have any more pictures or movies that I can see? I don’t want to hijack the thread, so you can email me them if you have em.
You’re welcome, Lee. When I wrote the response about the SC-2, I was in a hurry and did not elaborate. One of the things I should have mentioned is that the three SC-2s provides me with 18 slots, but at this time I am only running three switches and six accessories. Hopefully, as my layout expands, I use up the other 9 slots.
BTW, although no one ever seems to ask, the SC-2s are programmable. [:D] I can tell it to run different combinations of switches and accessories. On my first SC-2 that I purchased, I ran four switches and two accessories. That SC-2 has now been programmed to run just switches. This means when I wire the next three switches it is ready to go. The SC-2s that run accessories only are powered off of the small power packs that are included. The switches only SC-2 is powered from the track. (You discover things like this by reading the fine print in the instructions. Of course I had to read the instructions more than once. )
On an accessories like the Burning Control Tower where there are two actions, the fire and the stair climber, one slot on the SC-2 runs both functions. Again, I had to read the instructions and use a common ground.
I have experienced the bad signal/antenna problem. From other posts, it seems I need to open up the SC-2 and check the antenna to see if it is loose. The SC-2 can sit anywhere on the layout because it gets its signal from the track, just like the TMCC engines.
The best place to learn about SC-2s is from the Lion’s mouth. They had the instruction book on their website the last time I looked.
hi-if you can afford it, i would use both tmcc and dcs systems-i use dcs mostly because of using strickly dcs engines but both systems can be used on the same loop-you can operate mth eninges with the dcs system then shut down that system to operate a lionel engine-i perfer dcs system and mth engines-tom
I can operate up to ten switches and ten accessories with one AIU(accessory interface unit) by MTH and hook up five AIU’s total, 50 switches and 50 accessories, to one MTH DCS/TIU(track interface unit) unit, so far I am only able to dial-up switches to set the direction, no preset switch combinations but maybe I don’t know everything about the DCS system. The handheld remote will let you add more TIU’s to the DCS systyem or use it with some one else’s DCS system. With DCS you must activate each locomotive for each session.
Currently I have five switches and one accessory wired to my AIU. Everything for DCS is hard wired except the handheld remote.
However I am limited to MTH products unless I add a TMCC base to the TIU.
Not sure about this but have read something on the subject of adding aluminum foil to the top of a layout to improve the signal reception for TMCC, there was an article some time back in CTT magazine, at least I think it was in CTT.