I agree that one or the other is not automatically right for everyone. I had looked at the Aristocraft system several years ago and concluded at that time that it was not what I needed, but I see they have improved it since then. DCC with the cab bus and/or central control station didn’t work for me either. When wireless DCC came along I went with it.
In my case I like wireless DCC because
No control panels or central control station needed. (And I don’t want any)
No wiring except for power bus with track feeders. (I don’t have a cab bus and my turnouts are hand thrown.)
I like sound and in S you can have larger speakers.
I only have 12 locomotives currently and don’t plan to exceed 20.
No signalling required as the Ma&Pa was dark.
Our situations are very different, but fortunately there is a solution for each of us.
and yet you still did. thats ok since i’m being judged i realized no one is going to help me so i figured i would just do whatever and not care if it was a comic book world running 10 trains with dc cab control on top of sky scrapers with a mix of steamers and modern diesels. i wasn’t comparing apples to oragnes. i was talking apples and someone else said “well what about this orange”. i don’t need a wireless dc walk around throttle, or a wireless dcc throttle for that matter. i was talking about dc walk around throttles that were already made. even if i could use a wireless dc throttle i wouldn’t, sounds like the wiring would be a nightmare.
i would like to make something fun and easy like MR’s carolina central or a simplified version of the blue coal & stafford city layouts before i dive into one of my own so to speak. i’m still going to do all the research for a future layout though. with the central i wouldn’t even need a walk around throttle come to think of it, but as a lot of things it would be nice to have.
that first or second link given was of a throttle that could be bought pre-made for 40 bucks or make it yourself. what kind of connector would those use? i see a lot of dc walk around throttles using the 5mm plug in stereo jack style connectors.
You are most welcome. If I was in a larger scale, like S or On30 or larger, I would be interested in onboard sound. I feel with the larger scales not only is the sound dramaticly better, because of the larger scale, you are in a more intimate relationship with the model, making effects like sound much more realistic and fun.
Making the choice you did, when you did, I would have chose DCC for your situation as well.
Today I would consider the new product from Aristo Craft, the Train Engineer Revolution. It has 50 channels and uses onboard receivers that will control sound boards. It uses track power or battery power in large scale and has basicly all the features of DCC but the control signal reaches the loco through the air by radio, not through the track.
These are brand new, just released. I have one of the orginal test batch but have not done much with it do to other projects and work, but all the reports are VERY GOOD. I think I will install it in my On30 that I run for the Christmas Tree.
My understanding is they are working on HO sized receivers for it as well. Not that I would do that myself, but there is a future other than DCC.
Using the track for power only and not for the signal has the prospect of reducing track cleaning issues and as batteries get better who knows.
I don’t recal if I ever mentioned to you, I live right along the Ma & Pa in the Village of Forest Hill, MD.
In fact my house was built the same time the line was converted to standard gauge and the Ma & Pa was formed.
i didn’t think i “flipped” but i may have been a little rude. sorry. now since it seems the whole dc/walk around control for an n scale table seems to make for cost in wiring complication would i just be better off with getting a zephry or just using my power pack itself? its n so i have no wants for sound, although if i did go dcc i would use lighting options. my bigger plans and my starter plans both use a small multi track hidden stagging to hold trains. basically just have a have already blocked consists waiting where they can’t be seen. i was thinking of running freight and passenger consists when i started this post but i can skip the passenger if it makes things easier. i’ve got to play around with a zephry before so i have the basics of teh zephry and older SEB/DT400 throttle and the little UT4 throttle. either way i go i would use my power pack untill i saved up enough for the dcc or the block/walk around throttle route. i would be more likely to make a carolina central version starter because i think i might rather do my actual bigger layout when i have more room to spread the towns out. looking at bing maps if i modeled modern time just one town alone could have close to a dozen business’s to spot cars at.
Possible connectors depend on the number of conductors (poles) needed in the tether. When I was making my DC handheld, I could not find/redesign a circuit to use only 3 conductors and still have reversing control in the walkaround. 4 conductors is fairly easy to achieve - especially if you allow full track power in the tether wires. But 4 conductors do NOT work with a single stereo jack (has 3 conductors). I used a 4 pole square connector I found at Radio Shark in conjunction with a coiled telephone handset cord as the tether. Since the handset cord has very light wire, I modified the circuit, splitting some components to the layout side, and some to the handheld box. A 12V DPDT latching relay was added to work off an SPST toggle for a direction switch, thus enabling just 4 wires in the tether.
Check the specs on the chosen throttle to see how many wires are needed in the tether. If you check the link I gave in my earlier post in the thread, you will see the plug and tether I used in the photo.
If I were doing it again today, I would use a metal DIN plug and socket. These are available with up to 6 conductors, and stand up pretty well to handling and repeated use. I do prefer a coiled tether, and these are readily available in light gauge 4 conductor.
If you use a pot - rotary control with knob - for speed control, and a direction switch, you are pretty much forced to have a minimum of 4 conductors in the tether. To get down to 3 conductors requires push button speed control or a pot that uses half of the range for reverse.
The MRC handhelds do not come with a tether - you make your own, which hooks to s
I could care less about the layout wiring comparisons but I have watched children operating the Aristo Train Engineer system at the Big E show in West Springfield. They did quite well. Sheldon is involved with the young people. You can not argue with success.
Remember the OP, he is not electronics capable from what he said. To each his own. We are supposed to be having fun.
I use DCC and I also know there are many, many issues with DCC that users have to overcome. I belong to seven DCC forums and see a lot of issues because of the complexity of manufacturer/control/decoder software issues, including wiring the layout.
I have been to Forest Hill a couple of times, looks like a nice place to live. The hobby shop in the Ma&Pa train station is one of the few that carry S. I stop in occaisionally after the Great Scale Train Show in Timonium.
DCC wiring is only hard if you MAKE it hard. People overcomplicate things incredibly, a newbie sees this and figures this MUST be the right way to do it, and runs into problems. It all depends on how many trains you plen to run and had little to do with the size of the layout. If you are not going to run more than the 10-15 HO loco capacity of most DCC systems (ones above the basic 'starter set" all you NEED is a paid of fairly heavy wires running under the layout with lots of track feeders hooked to it. Period. Complicated? Hardly.
I’m still waiting to see just how it is that DC zone control wiring is any simpler than DCC - I have the original articles where MZL control was first presented. From an operation standpoitn, once it’s all installed - it’s super easy to drive your train anywhere on the layout. However, if someone gets scared when they see ‘6 wire phone cords’, showing them the diagrams of something like this is going to send them straight to the nut hatch. If you want to count the complex design inside the DCC controller, then yes, it is simpler, but that’s hardly a vlaid comparison point. Yes, it’s basic electricity, not electronics, just repeated over and over again depending on the number of zones you break the layout up into. But it is NOT simple - to install.
I DO get it - you liek what you have, it does what you want it to do, you have no reason to switch. Fine. But any DC system that allows more than 2 trains on anything but a trivial layout is NOT ‘simpler’ than DCC. You can, believe it or not, get everything DCC off the shelf, if if you don;t want sound. I fully realize that at even $12 each for NCE D13SRJ decoders, converting 199+ locos is over $1200, which can buy a lot of other railroad items. In fact I don;t think converting a truly large basement layotu is practical for most people. But satrting out? No one says you need to get 10 throttles, 5 boosters, and several dozen decoders before you even get the
Actually a room sized DCC layout can be as simple as two wires. I constructed a 25’ x 50’ shelf layout around the walls of my basement (previous HO scale layout). I had a two wire 12ga buss runing under the layout with jumper wires from the buss about every 6 to 10 feet. I used a Digitrax Chief. I had my yard isolated electrically with a Digitrax DB150 booster for the yard. I started the layout with two MRC20 and used three 12 ga (common wire) buss. I used DPDT toggle switches for block control. When I converted to DCC I pulled one of the buss wires and removed the toggle switches.
If you are happy with DC, good for you. I was very pleased with the operation of my MRC DC power packs, but I found that DCC offered a lot more.
Thre are a lot of plug and play DCC decoders and DC locomotives with a built in DCC plug so converting to DCC is simple. I have heard the argument of the cost to convert 50 locos to DCC. I have a lot of locos and only about a dozen have DCC decoders. When I had my DC layout I didn’t run that many locomotives anyway.
I see a lot of posts on DCC forums with modelers spending a lot of time trying to program with a DT400. I never got into that because DecoderPro is so easy to use.
I have only recently got into sound…and WOW!!! My first sound locomotive was a gift from my wife. I have since installed some sound decoders on my own and they work great.
Again, if DC mets your needs great, but take a look at what DCC has to offer. Try it, you may like it.
The earlier posts in the thread gave you some ideas for pre-made throttles. Reading your question again, I sense that you think that wiring a walk-around throttle to your Railpower 1400 will give you a second throttle to control a second train.
The response is not so simple. If your walk-around throttle can use an AC input, AND you do NOT use common rail wiring, the walk-around throttle can be powered from the Railpower AC terminals. This assumes the Railpower puts out enough power to run 2 trains simultaneously - probably true for single-headed trains in N scale. A rating of 12VA should be enough as long as you are not doubleheading.
Your walk-around cannot hook to the Railpower DC terminals because those are controlled by the Railpower knob and direction switch.
Without the walk around throttle, you are just wiring the DC output of the Railpower to the track - one wire to each rail. With 2 throttles (walk around or fixed), the track is broken into electrically isolated sections called blocks. Each block has a toggle switch that selects which throttle controls a particular block. Any of the wiring books I suggested earlier will discuss this in more detail.
sorry fred didn’t mean to mislead you there. i knew a walk around throttle was just that, a throttle, i didn’t mean to make it sound like i thought it would be used as a seperate throttle for a multiple trains. thats why i asked about block control, i know with dc and running multi trains you have to use block control and i do beleive a different power pack. after looking at my modeling concepts a little more i could possibly run double headers but not two seperate trains so i don’t even think i will need block control.
it was a just trying to use what i had to make cheaper costs, but i sort of forgot that the zephry can use a power pack as second stationary throttle. i think i will wait till i have a track plan done to see which way to go, it should give me a better idea. my hand is still healing so i haven’t been able to do much with it yet besides re-read back issues of MR. i’m starting to learn to use the caps button though for capalizing, sure makes it easier than having to try and hold downt he shift button and type.