Bachmann’s initial release of E-Z APP has only a few features.
Bachmann video https://youtu.be/-6aANfiMC78
RR Baron
Not a big deal. It will evolve.
Notice how fast digital control of locos is happening.
Patience Grasshopper as Caine’s teacher use to say.
Rich
Reading what Rich wrote was a total waste of time, no useable information.
Ended with a condescening comment.
RR Baron
If Bachmann treats it like their EZ DCC it won’t get much in the way of features. If you want all the features, you need to buy the real system from the OEM who makes it. There was no alternative to the EZ Command, but the Dynamis - this is a stripped down ESU system, if you buy the actual ESU version it has a lot more features and expandability that are missing from the Bachmann version.
–Randy
I am watching to see what BlueRail Trains is able to sell direct.
BTW - Bachmann’s unique and limited basic DCC system is the E-Z Command Control Center. Misnomer to refer to that product as EZ DCC, but some do. CVP Products makes EasyDCC.
Bachmann’s Dynamis and Dynamis Pro (Dynamis with the Dynamis Pro Box add-on), while still being sold by Bachmann here in USA, it has been replaced by Dynamis Ultima. This is currently only being sold by Bachmann Europe Plc. (seen referred to as Bachmann UK).
RR Baron
Very interested in seeing where this goes. From what I’ve seen, it removes almost all the complexity of DCC.
OTOH, unless they release stand alone ‘decoders’ compatible w/ any current DCC-ready loco and more diverse sound sets (or a chip that can piggy back any NMRA-compliant DCC decoder for BT controll), it will languish as a novelty.
As it’s launching, I guess you’d better like F-units, or you’re out of luck…
I still fail to follow this whole “removes the ocmplexity from DCC” reasoning. Someone’s still got to install the bluetooth receivers in the locos, and guess what, they hook up EXACTLY like a DCC decoder. Get someone else to do it? Well, there are plenty of places today that will install your DCC decoders for you. Buy locos with it already installed, as Bachmann is selling? Oh wait, bachmann (and lots of others) sell locos with DCC already installed.
If you want momentum in your loco - you will still have to adjust it, assumign the BT recivers allow such things. If you need to speed match locos from different makers - well, you still have to do that. If you want to add flashing ditch lights, or warning beacons, or Mars lights - no different than DCC, you have to hook them up and then configure the receiver/decoder to make them operate.
All this is changing is the communications medium, from a signal in the rails to a wireless Bluetooth signal. There’s still a piece of hardware to install in every locomotive, which will require the motor brushes to be isolated from the pickups, and there is still ‘programming’ of some sort to configure features. Unless you don’t want any of that stuff and just want simple headlights, but in DCC you ALSO do not have to do any additional programming for that.
‘Something new’ always attracts interest. No one is immune, but some of us resist is better than others - I love my iPhone, but I don;t rush right out and buy the newest one every time a new one comes out. I’m now 3 models behind, so once the furor over the latest one dies down and they are readily in stock everywhere, I may finally upgrade. But with something like this, which, in the case of having several dozen locos, until and unless there is a standard that allows me to buy this technology from multiple vendors and know it will all interoperate, I’m not about to take the plunge. It’s nice you can buy a train set from Bachman
Bachmann has announced the following HO scale diesel locomotives factory equipped with E-Z App control BlueRail Trains board.
EMD FT-A
EMD GP35
ALCO RS-3
BlueRail Trains states they intent to provide a version of the board that plugs into any 8 or 9 pin harness connection for existing locomotives.
RR Baron
Available info –
The Bachmann initial release works with Apple iPhone, iPad, or iOS device that supports Bluetooth 4.
Using Android 4.3 or newer version smart device is in pipeline per BlueRail Trains.
RR Baron
Why go bluetooth?
ESU has a new throttle for their ECOs DCC.
http://www.esu.eu/en/products/digital-control/mobile-control-ii/
This is really great news for us that use Android devices as throttle.
Only problem with the ESU thing is it is still a complete throttle, not an add-on for smartphones. I mentioned this previously - I envision a knob throttle incorporated into a phone case, the knob and electronics snap on to the case, so as you change phones, you just need the (inexpensive) case part and reuse the same electronics. This interfaces to the phone via bluetooth, and works via a throttle app where things like the function buttons and the address selector use the phone’s screen, and train control uses the knob. Universal device, works with any smartphone, needs no physical interface so no worries about proprietary connectors to the phone, and give that one missing piece of smartphone train controls - no knob.
–Randy
I see the current BlueRail Trains product not as a replacement for DCC but as an alternative to it, not forgetting this is a proprietary product. Perhaps just the thing for those that use trains as Christmas decoration but wants sound.
RR Baron
I’m not much of a smart phone or blue tooth user, but once I buy this product, how long will it be before I have to by an upgrade?
My DC power pack has lasted 25 years, and my DCC system going on about 3 now with no changes needed to it since dates of purchase.
It just seems like my kids, who use smart phones and blue tooth, seem to always need to download the latest “upgrade” in order for their technology to keep running smoothly.
It’ll be good not to have signaling going through the rails, like it is with DCC.
Some more facts about the Bachmann current E-Z APP Train Control product.
E-Z APP Train Control User Guide
http://e-zapptraincontrol.com/user-guide/
More info and videos can be found through the Bachmann website.
RR Baron
Why? Signaling through the rails like DCC works very well. Have you seen the size of some of those N track and Freemo setups? That’s with pieces built by many different people, with lots of joints because the modules are typically 4 to 8 feet long. IE - way worse than even a big home layout built essentially by 1 person and some helpers if you are lucky, and generally continuous.
It works because DCC uses the full amplitude of the power source. Older systems did things like put 14V DC on the rails and them superimpose 1V P-P or so AC signals witht he command data. The low amplitude signal could easily be swamped in noise. The idea that Bernd Lenz (Hornby’s Zero-1 also used a similar full amplitude signal, IIRC) came up with that became DCC got rid of all the problems of the low amplitude signal command control systems. if there’s enough power to move the train, then it’s ALSO getting the command signal.
Some people have more problems with dirty track than others - my previous layout, I NEVER cleaned the track. I don’t even own a track cleaning car. I do have a Bright Boy to clean paint off the railhead from painting the sides, but that is truly the only ‘cleaning’ I ever do. I have not had problems with stalling locos, or even the headlights flickering, and none of my DCC locos currently has any sort of keep alive circuit installed.
–Randy
It’s the removal of custom, proprietary, and incompatible control and programming hardware where the advantage is. The loco still needs all the same/similar hardware to have the same/similar functions.
But the command station, programmer, and throttle are all subsumed into a device I already have and use everyday - a tablet/smartphone. I don’t have to choose between, and commit to (read: spend hundreds of dollars on), Lenz, Digitrax, NCE, EcoS, etc just to try the technology out. And possibly regret in incompatible ‘flavor’ of DCC I bought into later.
Instead of manually programming arcane CVs bit-wise (or :shudder: in hexidecimal), I get a configuration screen in an app with variables in english and adjustment sliders - their videos have already shown how this stuff is going to work.
For people with a full-blown DCC setup that works well for them, I can see why this technology seems like a ‘so-what’ development. But for someone who hasn’t committed, it’s potentially a very attractive alternative. If the claims of those developing/promoting it pan out, at least.
Also of note, the app is already expanding from what was to be offered at first, and this is from the Bachmann side. Now the real question is will people be happy with sounds from the phone, or will they demand onboard sound. With phone sound you can change and upgrade, constantly, with onboard you get a more relistic feel but limited to what you installed, or it could be a hybread with basic motor sounds from the engine, and others from the phone, or???
According to claims from Bluetrains posted on another forum, they have plans for onboard sound coming after launch (and presumably dependent on success) of the initial product.
It sounds as though Bachmann will be exclusively offering the RTR onboard version of this technology, while Bluetrains will be offering stand-alone decoders, sound modules, and accessory controllers for addition to third-party models/devices at a later time as (if) the system takes off.
[#offtopic]
For those who like to use both hands and buttons there is this