Hey Everyone,
I am president of a train club with approximately 46 members. Layout is what I would call mid-sized for a club, but large for a private modeler. Sorry, I do not have specs for how many feet of track but could get that info.
We currently have Digitrax but have been having lots of issues with it . Not going to get into those, just sharing that to set the stage for my question.
We have had some discussions as a board about possibly switching systems, but we want to get to the bottom of our problems first before going down that road - we want to be sure the problems are with the system and not elsewhere.
Regardless, one of our members recently installed DCC-EX on his home layout and now feels it’s the greatest thing to happen to model railroading since DCC itself came along so
my question to you is: do any of you belong to a club which have put this in, and if so, what is your assessment of it?
My first impression is that simply because it IS relatively new, I’d be hesitant, as a board member, to recommend to the membership that we adopt something which simply hasn’t been around all that long. Installing it in my own layout would be one thing, but for a club’s layout?
Anyway, would appreciate hearing from any if you about the pros and cons of the system in general, and your take on possibly having it run an entire club layout.
But as said, I don’t want to get into the issues we are currently having because I am not the electrical guy so I could not intelligently discuss them.
However, our electrician is attempting to solve them but IF he is unable to do so and feels they are indeed rooted in our Digitrax system, there will be a push by some in the club to go with a new operating system. So, just asking about DCC-EX for possible future reference since at least one member seems to think it is the best system out there.
Dan, I think that you are taking the right approach in focusing on a request for comment only from those members of this forum whose club either uses DCC-Ex or considered and rejected DCC-Ex. Otherwise, you risk another bloated thread on who makes the best DCC system. But, I suspect that you won’t get many replies in that case because I doubt that many clubs use DCC-Ex at this time.
Running trains only, or is there signaling, etc, involved?
Concerning the DCC-EX, that one member who thinks it’s better than sliced bread may be correct, but if he happens to like pumpernickel and the rest of you like white bread…
And I think it would be worthwhile for some of the bored, I mean board, to visit that member’s railroad to see exactly what is involved. Would you be able to get everything ready to run? Or if scratchbuilding is required, who is going to do that?
Edit: It might also be a good idea to review the website that was referenced above. See if you can understand any of that. Did not appear that simple to me.
With just a cursory look at DCC-EX and the fact that it is open source and the fact that it is a “Project”, I would be concerned about its future. I am part of a large club, 4K sq ft layout 12 boosters, and we just made the switch from NCE to TCS for control and are now in the process of switching from Digtrax detection and signaling to LCC using RR-CirKits hardware.
I’d be interested to know if it’s a problem attempting to use wireless / radio control. I and some other folks I’ve talked to have had trouble with Digitrax when trying to use wireless throttles. (In my case, that’s the reason I changed to CVP.)
Digitrax & NCE are going to be just fine as long as there are folks like me who are not comfortable in an open source environment. As a lone wolf, I have to depend on myself; I’d rather troubleshoot what I know than learn something entirely new. I’d probably have a different outlook if I was 25 years younger, with good vision. But that is not my reality. So I’ll continue to use and upgrade my Digitrax system.
No, they will only be just fine as a viable business if there remains a steady stream of modelers who are looking to buy command stations and throttles.
As long as you can buy a Digitrax or a NCE system at an online hobby shop, at a train show, or at a LHS, that’s what folks are going to buy. How many beginners are even going to know what DCC is; much less DCC-EX?
The original premise that DCC-EX may be viable for a club layout is valid, as long as there is desire and expertise withing the club to manage it.
Update:
The board voted to go with NCE - even the guy who wanted us to go with DCC-EX felt that was the better way to go.
Now our biggest issue is locating the twelve boosters we need. Two of our power sections are still undergoing extensive new work so we’ll keep them unpowered for now so we can get by with ten boosters. But even finding that many was challenging. We managed to buy eight, with a member loaning us two more from his layout, so we are good for now and can obtain the additional four when the supply chain improves.
