I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to the percentage, but DC is still has a large share of the hobby. I was talking to the manager of my LHS about selling my collection of DC locos, mostly Athearn BB diesel and Rivarossi steam. I asked him if there was still a market for it. He said whenever he puts them on the shelf of second hand equipment, they always sell. He said nobody is getting rich off of them, but there is still a demand for them and I doubt many people are buying them with the idea of putting a decoder in them.
My thought on keeping the batteries charged - take a leaf from one rather unusual prototype.
The Six Companies Railroad (operated for the purpose of building Boulder, now Hoover, Dam) hauled loaded concrete buckets from the batch plant at Lomix through a 1600 foot tunnel to the base of the dam to provide material for the dam itself and the intake towers. Motive power was battery mine motors, which charged from a third rail in the tunnel. There was no third rail at either the batch plant or the unloading site sidings.
So-o-o - power stretches of ‘plain Jane’ track with AC at a suitable voltage and provide a charger circuit on board. Battery power will carry the loco across puzzle palaces of fancy switchwork and into other places where running power leads would be a problem. No need for a seven hour battery - seven minutes would probably be adequate. If a stud contact system was used the rails would be available for signal detection circuits.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Your idea means that a large club layout would have to be redone to add all the required ‘charging’ trackage — no thanks. I’ll stick with DCC until such time as battery technology catches up.
An existing club most likely has all track powered and therefore doesn’t need to add any recharging trackage.
I see that the NCE wireless antenna modules uses an RF transceiver module that costs ~$8. How many of us would be willing to pay at least an additional ~$8 for a wireless decoder. (The NCE Pro-Cab is $130 and the wireless Pro-Cab is $198).
Again, no one is thinking that many exisiting DCC layouts would be converted.
BUT, the two technologies can and do co-exisit. I believe the Railpro system will run with DCC or DC as its track power. And there is is little reason why charging circuits could not be designed the same way.
It still amazes me that so many of you come at these kinds of topics from the standpoint that everyone else is already doing what you are doing.
I will repeat again, it is unlikely that many modelers would leave DCC for direct radio with or without batteries, but it is highly likely that direct radio could soon be a major competitor with DCC for the new person entering the hobby, or the DC modeler who might be temped by a format “simpler” than DCC.
Sheldon
why do you think direct radio and DCC are incompatible?
While DCC does specifiy an electrical standard for the rails, it’s also a protocol for communication. Wouldn’t such a protocol also be required for any wireless method?
Why not have a wireless DCC (to the locomotive) that can be operated along with DCC to comes thru the rails?
Which is what Tam Valley’s system does. Their radio transmitter connects to the track outputs of the DCC system and is in fact broadcasting DCC packets to the receivers in the locos.
–Randy
So what about battery power would eliminate the wiring for the detection and signals? For that matter, with dead rail, how are you going to do the detection? Optical? That takes even more wires.
Wired communication is always going to be better than radio. Since the trains are running around on “wires” it sounds like a no-brainer to me to put the control signals and the power on the track. The large scale garden guys have a different set of problems than I do. As far as I’m concerned, for indoor layouts, Keep-Alive has made this a solution looking for a problem.
I never said that it could not or should not be done that way, of course it can, and in some cases is.
But the DCC communication protocol is old technology and some of the direct radio products currently available use DCC protocols and some do not.
The S-Cab from NWSL uses DCC, so does the CVP miniAirWire900.
The Aristo Revolution and RailPro do not.
Sheldon
Karl, once again, for those already heavily invested in DCC there is no advantage to changing.
Signaling is complex and expensive with ANY control system, that’s not going to change. Take a poll, you will find out very few modelers have signal systems…
And again, small or medium sized DCC layouts without siginaling do not require a whole lot of wiring. But assuming receiver costs could be made equal to current decoder costs, direct radio could be a big cost savings on a large layout that requires lots of boosters, circuit breakers, reversers, etc.
And with batteries it could eliminate reversers, being self charging on some track and battery powered on other sections of track.
Again, it will likey appeal most to those not yet invested in ANY kind of advanced system…
Does it bother you that DCC might have comp
That’s a pretty big assumption. This receiver would have to do everything the decoder already does plus handle radio reception and battery charging. And don’t forget the cost of the battery - which won’t be cheap. On top of that their is the extra cost of small production runs until it reaches critical mass.
Competition is great. It drives costs down and performance up. If someone comes up with a better mousetrap I’m all for it. Just don’t bother with it after mice are extinct.
Not relevant - I’m in HO. DCC is used widely enough that I can get the parts I need at a reasonable cost from enough different suppliers that I can use it risk free. That is what I waited for before adopting it. At least for now, I am now content.
Prototype train detection is based on a low resistance path between the rails across the solid wheels. Model electrical detection using batteries is easily achieved with resistors across metal wheels, which is the way some model detection circuits work today.
While DCC is old, not sure what the new technology or new protocol is that would replace it. The market for the new wireless technology would not be limited “to new person entering the hobby” if the “new” wireless technology remains compatible with existing systems.
Radio has been around for a long time too. But while radio technology has improved in terms of miniaturization, cost and bandwidth, it’s the protocols and computational improvements that make the new protocols practical that have enabled the latest (4G) phones.
Karl, I understand, I don’t have a dog in this fight, I still use DC with a masive wiring infrastructure for advanced walk around cab control with radio throttles, CTC, inter
As noted above, two of the direct radio products currently on the market do not use DCC protocols - I don’t know what they use, but it is not DCC. They turn on liights, blow whistles, etc - justlike DCC.
Sheldon
OK, DCC is old. Do the radio products do the same or more than what DCC can do or less expensively than DCC?
Well, they don’t do it less expensively yet - in most situations. As far as what they do, which features are improtant to you?
Each of the several systems out there right now is set up slightly differently.
The ones that simply interface with a DCC decoder do everything that the decoder will do. The CVP system uses the same wireless throttle they sell for DCC with all the same functions.
I’m not an expert on them, nor am I an expert on DCC, but I have used DCC quite a bit did have one of the new Aristo systems, but never really got around to learning all its features - I passed it on to a large scale guy.
Fact is a lot of people don’t need or want all the complex features of DCC - or they want other features like signaling and CTC which DCC does not make easier or harder - just more expensive.
Sheldon
Nice thing about dead rail, no shorts and no track cleaning. I have the stuff for doing 4 locos but still spending all my time building the layout. Mine is not battery but can be converted and is plug-n-play in any 8 pin DCC setup.
Another concern would be ongoing cost. The batteries made today (think lithium-ion) are great and I’m sure could be fitted to model railroad applications, but they still have a usable life where they would reach a point where they would need to be replaced. Over time they don’t hold a charge as long, provide as much charge time, etc. On a smaller model railroad, that might not be so bad, but on a larger system with dozens of locomotives, replacing tired batteries could get very expensive very quickly.
An established layout would not have to be “redone” to add anything. The charging could be done from the existing track circuits. Once all motive power was radio controlled all the feeds to puzzle palaces and problem areas could be deactivated - but they wouldn’t have to be.
My stud contact suggestion would only be applicable to new construction. Of course, it could also be added to existing track by driving long wire nails through the entire roadbed sandwich of selected trackage and connecting them together on the underside.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - analog DC, MZL)
[quote user=“ATLANTIC CENTRAL”]
carl425
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
Advantages - less under layout infrastructure. Have any of you looked under the layout of a LARGE DCC layout with signaling and detection - just as much, or more, hardware and wire than my advanced cab control DC layout.So what about battery power would eliminate the wiring for the detection and signals? For that matter, with dead rail, how are you going to do the detection? Optical? That takes even more wires.
Wired communication is always going to be better than radio. Since the trains are running around on “wires” it sounds like a no-brainer to me to put the control signals and the power on the track. The large scale garden guys have a different set of problems than I do. As far as I’m concerned, for indoor layouts, Keep-Alive has made this a solution looking for a problem.
Karl, once again, for those already heavily invested in DCC there is no advantage to changing.
Signaling is complex and expensive with ANY control system, that’s not going to change. Take a poll, you will find out very few modelers have signal systems…
And again, small or medium sized DCC layouts without siginaling do not require a whole lot of wiring. But assuming receiver costs could be made equal to current decoder costs, direct radio could be a big cost savings on a large layout that requires lots of boosters, circuit breakers, reversers, etc.
And with batteries it could eliminate reversers, being self chargin