I was just looking at the Ring Engineering site and the product offered looks rather interesting. Does anyone here have any experience with using it?
Choo Choo Willie
It is a relatively new product that has not been on the market very long. From their advertising and some videos I’ve seen of it in use, it is an attractive alternative to DCC but is very pricey because of the single-source supplier, and there’s always the risk of them not surviving.
I have seen the unit demonstrated at my LHS and it is slick. The RailPro is radio based as no info goes through the rails. The 2-way communication between Ring’s decoders eliminates the need for speed matching in multiple locomotive consists.
I interviewed Tim Ring for a podcast in December (on iTunes) and he is an interesting guy. His company has been around with other products for over 10 years.
Price wise, his product is comparable to others. His base decoder has sound built in but I believe non-sound versions are about ready as are stationary decoders for accessories
There are some very nice features, in particular the auto speed match feature. Biggest issue is the size of the decoder/radio pack. Its going to be a real tough installation into anything small. No coincidence that the demos are all big modern diesel. No doubt they are working to address this?
It sure does sem nice, and Ring’s been around for a while. But it’s still a single source option from a company that few if any less casual modelers have ever heard of. They don’t hold a huge portion fo the market like MTH does, and even so, MTH DCS hasn’t completely taken over hi-rail. There will be a core group fo adherents who defend it to the death, liek those that love that IR thing, but widespread adoption like DCC? Not a chance withotu multiple manufacturers makign compatibl products.
The size will surely come down with future advances. The battery will be the biggest thing, but even that’s improving.
–Randy
Agreed, with a standard architecture available to any manufacturer, direct radio could easily become very big. There are now 3-4 players in this market, depending on what scale/size trains you are playing with. All are propriatary at this point, but so was command control before Lenz offered up DCC.
It does have a number of advantages:
Even using the rails for the power, dirty track less of a problem.
Less opertunity for signal loss/corruption
Much less “under layout” infrastructure.
The option of battery power, at least in the larger scales.
And currently, with both the RailPro and the Aristo TE Revolution, much better user interface than ANY brand of DCC throttle.
Actually, the way for DCC to fend off this “attack” is for some DCC manufacturer to come up with a throttle with a user interface that is as easy to use as the RailPro.
One of the big things that has kept me out of DCC is the poor design of ALL the user interface devices (throttles). Easy DCC is about the best, but sill not as user friendly as they should/could be.
Sheldon
Ecos has a similar graphical user interface as Rail Pro. This notion of icons and control via touch screen has been more prevalent in the European market than here. Its all personal choice of course, but I have become accustomed to small throttles that fit the hand well and don’t really require me to look at them for basic functional control. Most of the graphic based systems I have seen are really require two hands and for the operator to look right at the screen. There is no reason at all why DCC systems could not go this route, other than by choice. Of course cost would have an implication. At $400 list compared to a top of the line radio throttle from Digitrax or NCE, it is almost twice the price. Things like this are coming as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxh2ex5Iyqc for Digitrax which really moves the control into graphics realm for those that want it.
Once a loco is aquired, the RailPro throttle does not take two hands any more than a DT400 does. I use DT400’s all the time and I cannot aquire/dispatch a loco without looking at the throttle. In fact, getting my chubbt fingers on those tiny closely spaced buttons is the whole problem.
The price comparison is not valid simply from the standpoint that the RailPro, or any direct radio handheld eliminates the under layout booster/base station/etc.
I’m a nuetral observer, at home I don’t use DCC or direct radio. Still using DC here, with base station wireless radio throttles.
Sheldon
Sheldon, read their manual on their web site, for a non battery powered solution this is not the case. It is not just a case of hooking up 2 wires and away you go. For layouts powered with track power, which will be most HO layouts, until batteries become more practical, they actually tell you to wire as you would DCC with bus wires, and feeders every 6-10 feet. They even tell you to use the Quarter Test. Power boosters have to be no more than 15 feet apart and each power district has to be gaped. Auto reverse is accomplished by adding another PWR-75 at $250 odd. So for anything other than a basic layout, the under bench infrastructure is virtually identical to DCC and significantly more costly unless a basic auto reverser could be used (no mention is made that one can be). When DCC wiring gets complicated it is usually because of the need for signalling or power management. This would be no different with Ring. Guess what, if you get a short on the layout the Ring booster shuts down the whole section to which it is connected.
The only other difference would be the need for a throttle bus for non wireless DCC systems. But this is not especially costly or difficult to add. Most wireless DCC systems would not need this.
Sheldon, I also am an interested observer. I think this has a lot to offer, but saving on under deck infrastructure is not an advantage here and may actually be more costly.
It does look cool to use but what about all those DCC decoders we already have? I have 70 decodered locomotives. It would be like switching to Seargent couplers when you already have 2000 KDs. How would it work in a club type situation?
Pete
That’s where the thing that Duncan at Tam Valley is workign on is neat - is uses the existing DCC decoder, soundor non-sound. Same issue in the end though, as a one-vendor solution, unless he makes it available for others to make.
–Randy
Well that is disapointing, the Aristo TE Revolu
OK, I went on their site and read their manuals, seems to me the average home layout would do just fine with one to three power supplies depending on the reverse loop situation.
As I said, I know many DCC layouts that run just fine without all these feeder drops every 10-15 feet.
Personally, in DC, I have never fed a given track section (block) with more than one set of wires and have never had voltage drop issues - I solder all my rail joints - always have - 40 years no problems.
I don’t know current prices on DCC bases and boosters, but I do that most of the guys I know have way more than $1000 in bases, boosters, circuit breakers and reversers. Three RailPro bases is less than $1000.
Sheldon
I think some type of wireless control is the way of the future. RailPro is just one step in that direction. Personally, I think eventually it’ll be some kind of WiFi solution.
I would think that you could use straight DC or DCC if all the track is doing is charging the battery(s). One would probably have to go back to the old relay/sensor system for reverse loops in DC or maybe hook up a rectifier to the charger for DCC. They do say you don’t have to have power on all the track, just use charging stations, like a track at an engine terminal or fueling station. It kind of depends on how long a charge will last and how long it takes to charge back up to make that practical. I don’t really see why you would have to spend $250 on their reversing system. I suspect that may be a way of keeping you buying their products instead of others. There may be more to it, I don’t know.
I think we are mixing up systems here? NWSL is the one touting battery wireless control of DCC. I don’t think Ring makes any battery claims?
RailPro does not use any batteries in the engines, only the controller. They use a DC power supply but thier receivers will also operate on a layout that runs 16v DCC, a/c. Each power supply supplies 5 amps and I am sure that eventuatly they will have a device to seperate power districts or possibly since it is already DC with no control signal overlapped, a standard low volt circut breaker might work. There is no need to connect each power supply to the next since no control signal is needed but the polarity with the adjasent district would need to be addressed. You already need reversers for DCC so no big deal to add them on a layout wired for RailPro. I’m sure the cost will drop or someone will develop a simlper, cheaper unit since it is only dealing with straight DC.
I am in the process on laying track on my new layout and I am doing the track buss the same as I would for a DCC layout, even though I will probably use RailPro. It will make it much easier to seperate power districts in the future and also provide seperate districts for signalling and detection.
There has been a lot of discussion on other sights about how this system is propriority and will not work on someone elses layout. You can still operate your engines on someone else’s DCC layout as long as you also bring your controller. RailPro will not control anything DCC but your engines will work just fine on a DCC layout. You already can not use your own controller on someone else’s layout unless they are useing the same brand as you are. The only part of DCC that is compatable between brands are the decoders and some of the hardware that controls reverse section and such.
If you already have thousands of dollars invested in DCC than this system is probably not for you. I personally have very little invested in DCC and I am strongly considering all my options. I have most of the DCC books that have been printed lately and all the complicated programing really turns me off.
If you have the
Prostreetamx said it pretty much right on. I started off with DCC but did not have much invested in it besides a handful of decoders. I run at the local club layout and for the most part DCC ran well. I started having problems when I began converting to sound and the programming and speed matching really turned me off, even when using JMRI. I saw Railpro and decided that the best way to find out if I like it is to buy it.
I’ve had it for several months now and will not go back to DCC. Not that there is anything wrong with DCC, there just isn’t anything that it can do for me that Railpro can’t (control-wise). If I ever built a layout I’d consider wiring it for DCC so that other operators could run their equipment, but for running locos Railpro is just so nice.
I have Railpro modules installed in 6 locos at the moment: 3 Atlas, 1 Athearn RTR, 1 Athearn bluebox, and 1 Broadway limited. They can be tricky to install because of the thickness, but I successfully got it to fit in a short GP35 with a speaker and resistors for lights. The control for single locomotives is very nice and can be fine-tuned in real time without having to use a programming track. Consisting works very well and I can run all of my locos together in any configuration without any real issue. I do have a loco that doesn’t like to play nice with the others at slow speed, but it’s a problem with the loco itself and not the Railpro hardware. It’s also important to understand that it is not ‘speed matching’ like DCC, but rather load-sharing. It’s not as evident when you are running locos light, but when pulling a train you will see that the couplers between the locos stay tight and all of them are contributing equally to the load.
The sound is great but somewhat limited at the moment. The GE FDL16 is the best I’ve heard and sounds exceptional when properly baffled. The 645 roots blower is
Ring is reluctant to suggest battery power and is confident that their track power supply will overcome rail power problems… and there is nothing that would prevent the use of battery power. The NWSL S-CAB does support battery power recharged from whatever power is on the rails. The S-CAB also uses existing decoders.
The real beauty is that you could use the RailPro system for new locomotives and use the S-CAB to upgrade existing DCC locomotives.
Note that all this is speculation and there are not any remarks on actual experience with RailPro.
After reading about RailPro last year I finally took the plunge and ordered an HC-1 controller and two LM-1 modules. I’ve since added 5 more LMs. I’ve never been a big fan of the current DCC systems and have been up to this point been using Rail-Lynx. Which is an infrared version of RailPro but without the possibility of sound. My layout has been powered by an MRC wireless DCC system for some time so others can run their DCC engines. Since adding RailPro to my engines I’ve been very impressed. I don’t mind that Ring Engineering is a propriety system as its benifits and ease of operation far out weigh this. Ring Engineering support has been nothing short of great. Any questions answered in very quickly. I highly recommend their system.
Hi Sorry for refreshing an older topic, but I thought that it would be better than starting a new one. Since the last time this post has been replied to, water have ran under the bridge and it seems Ring Engineering’s railpro has taken a huge step forward and away from the DCC standards. You can see what’s new on the Ring engineering Railpro system webpage: accessory modules with sound, home computer software to upload your images and sounds, + all what seems to be an already great system. I am considering switching from DC directly to Railpro. Anyone here have a fresher review of their experience with that sytem? Thank you!