It may be three or four years before I can build a layout, and even then, it will be a small switching layout. My thought has been to wire it for conventional DC, maybe use toggles to be able use DCC. I am still not sold on DCC, even though I have several decoder equipped locos and a full DCC system.
I am sure that battery powered systems will become common in HO. Not sure that I will want to make the switch; as I really don’t want to invest in another different technology when the existing stuff works just fine.
I’m also enough of a techophobe that I will never run trains with a phone. As I tell my kids and my wife; a phone is a phone is a phone, I will use it to communicate with them, and that’s it. If you whippersnappers want to watch movies, surf the web, etc., go ahead. Get off my lawn… [swg][swg]
I don’t mean to denigrate those who choose to stay with DC; after all, it’s all I’ve ever used to power my trains too. But, for realism in operations (sound, fine speed control, lighting functions, independent and consist control of multiple locos, etc) it’s hard to argue it’s the best option out there, even now.
I’m not convinced a touchscreen is the best way to control trains, but in a lot of other ways the new BlueTrains/Bachmann EZ App bluetooth system looks almost exactly like what I’m wishing for. Direct command control to the loco, independent of track power (DC/DCC/battery). Potentially all the functionality of DCC, plus more due to the increased bandwidth of BT 4/LE. Really interested to see where that goes.
I won’t have a layout for another couple years either, enough time to see if the BT option goes anywhere, I suspect.
Yeah, I’m not trying to make a statement with my comments, I really just wonder that if my throttle is tied to my smartphone, what happens when I change smartphones for other purposes? Would the layout app move to the new phone seemlessly? Is the changeover simple or is there an abundance of fiddling just to get back to the point I was?
And what if the smartphones move beyond the tech of the layout app, like a new computer being unable to run an older version of excel etc…
As it seems now, there are a lot of risks with tying my layout throttle to a device that I use in every day life. For me, there has to be a clear advantage for it to be a deal maker.
I am not personally vested emotionally in DC but there are a lot of folks here who are - even to the point of having a DC only thread and yes, many argue vehemently about each side and have their reasons. I just mention it because there are those who would “argue it’s the best option out there” for them. I know you feel strongly and have reasons for making the rather definite statements, but well, nuff said… I’m more of a spectator when it comes to the padded room arguments between the DC/DCC crowd but it can get pretty passionate! =D
I definitely do not prefer touch screens for control - for me I like the tactile feedback or feel of a mechanical knob for controlling train speed at least. Even though Digitrax is can be more techie and some say harder to work than NCE, I still wanted controllers with displays and regular rotary knobs so thats what I bought over 15 years ago. Since then I have had opportunities to get my hands on the NCE controller and the thumbwheel is pretty good too. Main point being, knobs and buttons are to me just superior for controlling things.
No worries, it’s all good! It just seemed like a good chance to h
Basicaly if you go for DCC ready, you can go DC, DCC or the new stuff (not new realy, just getting to the plug-n-play point though). Second if there is demand, there will be a stand alone throttle for the system by Bachmann but their object was to get people into it as cheap as possible. Last note Bachmann seems to go non priority on a lot of stuff, that is why the other company is not restricked from selling decoders.
I’m a newbe and yet to get my first “engine”. Wow, a lot of great comments here. Kinda reminds me of film cameras going digital. So should my first “engine” be a rail inspection truck with flashing lights that I can drive off rail too?
Interesting The NMRA does not seem to have weighed in on this issue.
My perpective is that now having several locomotives and an NCE powercab it is unlikely that I am going to change to dead rail anytime soon. Even if I did it would not be until standards are drawn up for wireless control.
As for smartphones I have no problem with downloading an app and using it as a throttle. Even if the phone I am using becomes obsolete I can still use it as a standalone thottle. It need not be a functioning phone anymore.
Cvp makes a battery board based on thier large scale version. It.is designed for live rail charging. So all.the switches and complicated track can be dead. While the rest can be live. Makes it usefully battery saver on grades. Drawing off track power.
The battery wireles. Isn’t new. Been a large scale thing for years. Cvp finally.figured out how to package it for smaller scales. Just like.they brough dcc cost down and flexibility with the rail coming in the early 90st
I have a Garden railroad that is totally dead rail using CVP. Wouldn’t change a thing with it. I know they came out with a small wireless decoder for HO, battery would probably have to be put in a trailing car.
Didn’t relise Cvp had entered the market. I see wireless becoming an add on to DCC as I have just seen the first DCC couplers come online at a reasonable price, about $8 a car for the kits.
I seriously doubt they will till someone comes forward with open, proprietary free specs, like Lenz did for DCC. (It was Lenz’s standard. They just made it openly available to everyone and royalty free to encourage it’s acceptance.)
cowjock,
$89-$95 for the CVP decoder? Yikes. And they’re .6" x 2.4" x .25"…twice as long as a $20 Digitrax DH126D decoder. What’s the range? How long will they run between charges? They don’t mention that.
DigitalGriffin,
Actually, Bernard Lenz gave his DCC protocol to the NMRA. The NMRA now “owns” it, and has improved upon it several times over the last 25+ years. But otherwise, yep, it’s a free and open standard that anyone can use for free.
Battery tech will have to do the same thing for wide acceptance…and come up with a sub-$20 solution for locos. Even DCC didn’t take off after the NMRA got the spec.'s. It took the sub-$20 decoder to really launch DCC.
So you are back to powering the track…which you needed to do before, except you just spent $80 per locomotive, to eliminate wiring and track cleaning, which you will need to do anyway if you want signals. This assumes you want to do it like the prototype. Optical detectors are a different story.
Unless you want Equipment Defect Detectors, which I believe are actually optical, both in model and prototype.
My point is there is more here than just train control. And like DC, DCC isnt going away. There is too large a customer base, and there are too many limitations to batterypowered radio/bluetooth. As was previously mentioned, there will not be a standard for this until someone makes one open to use by anyone (re:Lenz and their DCC protocol), so yes you are stuck with whichever one manufacturer you choose. I would need to see a price point of $30 per locomotive and a battery that lasts 3+ hrs and fits into a 44ton or Plymouth switcher (without an attached car) before I would even think about it. And even then I probably still would still not do it (re-batteries have a limited cyclic lifespan).
I asked Bachmann if I could consist their Blurail locomotive with my DCC locomotive. They said
Surprisingly I don’t think anyone in this thread has mentioned this yet, but the Tam Valley Depot has developed a clever method of dead rails. Basically you take your existing DCC system, and you plug in a wireless transmitter in parallel with the DCC signal that broadcasts the DCC signal through the air.
Then you take your DCC locomotive and install a wireless receiver that takes the airborne DCC signal and feeds it into the decoder. Power comes from a small battery that gets charged by the rails.
The nice thing is that you can ease yourself into it. If you have an existing DCC layout and locomotives, they will still function normally. You can gradually convert the locomotives one by one. Any new track you lay can be (mostly) dead rail. All you need is the occasional section of live rail to give the battery a boost and the train can run indefinitely.
The pre-built components are a little pricey but if you’re willing to DIY the electronics, it shouldn’t be too expensive. For a token $5 they sell the exact instructions that you need to assemble everything.
This sounds odd to me, or maybe just wishful thinking, or perhaps not very clear thinking.
What confounds so many of us is that our trains stutter, stall, stop, or the sound cuts out, or some other indication that power to the decoders is just that much too intermittent…no matter how we wire our rails. I know this isn’t such a big deal in DC, but in DCC it’s terrible, and it severely detracts from being able to enjoy the experience of playing with our trains. If it were not such a problem, why would we have this ‘solution’ thread proposing that we eliminate power to the rails entirely?
So, if continuity, or reliable pickup, or some other characterization of the problem IS the problem, and we need power to the rails to charge a ‘buffer’ of sorts, the battery, why would we try to eliminate feeding those rails…at all? It seems to me that the battery will need almost constant charging in order to keep up a healthy voltage, especially during demanding haulage, so it should be in contact with, and getting charge from, energized rails throughout the system. That is to say, most of the rails, not just a few selected ones here and there, should be offering the charging system some voltage to keep the battery as close to fully charged as possible. If the power goes out, I would want a fully charged battery so that I can play for maybe 20-30 minutes, not one that is down to half its capacity.
I am not in disagreement that we should rethink our approach to running trains. Something has to change to improve reliability if DCC is going to be the way for the foreseeable future. Unless we can include robust batteries that permit us to ru
I have never had these problems. I followed best practices in wiring. For my club layout we have invested in CMX cleaning cars, running 70% isopropyl alcohol on a 1 drip every 10 second cleaning. The only loss of power occurs when someone derails and/or collides with another train. This is 99% of the time a user or manufacturing defect vice wiring problems. I will probably invest in one once my new layout is built.
Also if you never clean your track, but rely on short powered sections to charge your locomotives, your train will pick up dirt on the non-powered section and drag it into the powered section. So you need to clean track anyway. (Anecdotal evidence due to some people not cleaning their track on their modules, wheels get dirty, dirt moves around layout on wheels, gets deposited where it wasnt before).
Thing is, I DON’T have these sort of problems. And I don’t own any of those fancy-schmacy track cleaning cars, either. Nor do any of my locos have a keep alive device attached, other than what may have come witht he decoder, which doesn’t keep the motor going anyway. My goal is always to be able to run a loco slowly and not have the headlight flicker - an LED reacts even faster then the sound or motor drive. There is no smoking allowed in my house, which probably helps. My last layout was in a spare bedroom, so the environment was fairly clean to begine with, but the one before that was in an unfinished basement - open ceiling joists above and unfinished cement walls and floor, and still no problems keeping trains running without sound hiccups and jerky action.
What am I doing different? I do paint the rails to kill the shine on all but the top. The only time I use a track cleaner is after painting to clean any stray paint off the railhead. I keep loco wheels clean using paper towels and alcohol. I do not run so much as ONE car with plastic wheels, everything gets metal wheelsets before it ever sits on the rails. I use every rail joiner (except where an insulating one is needed) for feeders. I DON’T solder all rail joints, but I will solder two pieces of flex together, then have a non-soldered joint, then the next two pieces are soldered, etc.
So what’s different? Why do so many people seem to have issues with stalling and hesitation? Is it just that people who don;t have problems don;t post about it, so we are really looking at a skewed result? I don;t think I do anything ‘out there’ in terms of wiring - never used common rail, even with DC, but otherwise pretty standard stuff. Is it a difference between DCC systems? I don;t have problems on the club layout and that lives for weeks or months between shows in unheated trailers. The only issue is with older modules that use connector track pieces, even when new joiners are justs, those short sections