For those interested in more info on alterative DC systems, I refer you to this thread, or send me a PM.
It includes pictures of a similar system to mine that I built and installed on a friends layout.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/thread/1801092.aspx
Sheldon
John (UP 4-12-2),
I would agree that DCS is more advanced than DCC, but better? Last week, an experienced DCC user (he’s got NCE at home and uses Digitrax at our club) was simply trying to change the address on an MTH SD70Ace using the club Digitrax system. It took him 6 attempts before the number was changed. This is better?
On a DCC sound decoder, my individual sound levels can be adjusted to suit my needs. On DCS, you get all or nothing. On DCC, I can move my sound & lighting effects around so if I want the coupler clank on F3 or F7 I can put it there. On DCS, you can’t move a thing. On some DCC sound decoders, I can upload custom sound effects to represent any prototype I want. With DCS, what they give you is what you get…no more. If I want DCC in my 1970’s-era brass steam loco, I have a multitude of choices to pick from. There are economical DCC decoders to fully involved sound systems. With DCS…you can’t do anything about that old engine because DCS decoders don’t exist outside factory installed units. All this is better?
While I want a simple control system, I don’t want simplistic. To me, DCS crosses that line.
Sheldon,
Many people still flip toggles or turn rotary switches. Please don’t try to pretend otherwise. I agree it’s not a great way to run a railroad, but it’s simple to understand and execute. As you know, it’s been the subject of many books and magazine articles over the past 70 years or so. Toggle flipping, for many of us, was the best we could do at the time, and for those that won’t change it will remain so.
Not everyone is an electrical engineer or electronics hobbyists that enjoys creating circuit designs or even soldering. There’s a lot of people in this hobby that just want to run trains and don’t have access to almost free electronic gear
Sorry Sheldon, but it seems that your comment about being able to run multiple trains in DC without flipping toggle switches is misleading, based on your response quoted above. Pushbuttons, toggle switches or a dispatcher at a CTC panel - some kind of switch is being thrown at some point in the process of running multiple trains. As the Mythbusters would say - “Myth: You can run multiple trains on a DC system without throwing switches - BUSTED”
So, if my arithmetic is correct:
(2) loops with (10) MRC 9500 power packs @ ~$90*/ea (discounted) = $1,800. [:O]
*[Prices for the MRC 9500s actually were anywhere from $87.59 to $145.98 ea. That would give a total range of $1,750 - $2,920 for all (20) twenty.]
Time honored or not, the above sure begs the question whether DC is cheaper than DCC in this particular situation.
Sheldon, you’ve noted several times in other similar discussion threads that the cost of outfitting a large amount of locomotives would get expensive. For $1,800, I could outfit 100 locomotives with NCE D13SJR decoders and buy a good DCC system and STILL have a good chunk of change left over in my pocket. (Thankfully, I only have a dozen or so locomotives. LOL!)
I would agree with you totally on this.
Tom
David B
I have been reading on other forums for about two days now that MTH seems to be ready to offer their HO engines in DCC, or DCC-ready, beginning in April some time. This can only be true if they have reconsidered their original apparent position about sticking strictly to their DCS control systems.
It’s about time…
We don’ wan’ no stinkin’ flame wars…okay?
Surely, a person can be pleased and compleat with a DC-operated and silent railroad. If he says as much, great! He’s enjoying the hobby, which is hopefully everyone’s goal. Complicated, expensive, simple and cheap, who cares…we all determine our way ahead.
Similarly, if DCC makes your experience ‘the greatest’, as the title of the thread says it is, then that is the judgement of those who are not squarely in the experience I described in the previous paragraph.
The bench is plenty long for all of us to enjoy the trains that pass in front of us, guys. [:)]
-Crandell
I agree its not cheaper in this case and I made no such claim about K-10 or this type of system, I simply pointed out its an old idea that works well in some cases. For the type of operation K-10 is, its a good system, since they are a public layout where people bring their own stuff.
Sheldon
Do you throw switches to align turnouts on your DCC layout? My turnout controls do most, and in some cases, all of the power routing for the cabs. This is a function of layout design and desired operational schemes, not a function of DC or DCC.
And, there are DC systems other than what I use, computerized block control for one, that do exactly that, run multiple trains without throwing any switches.
The point is this, the image of someone franticly flipping toggles on a central control panel to control several trains is an untrue image of many advanced DC cab control systems that have been developed over the years.
Fact is I can walk around with my train and push a few buttons at junctions and interlockings to align turnouts and route power without refering to or being at a central panel and without “doubling back”. Another operator can follow behind me and ajust his routes as needed.
OR as an option, the CTC Dispatcher can assign those routes and the Engineers just run the trains and obey the signals. From the Engineer’s point of view, how is that any different than DCC? If I’m all alone, the whole railroad can be asigned to my throttle and I can go anywhere with my wireless throttle.
I only run one train at a time OR have them on independent routes OR have a crew with an Engineer for each train. I have no interest in trying to operate two trains by myself on the same route.
My choices, I understand they are not for everyone.
Sheldon
…dont make me bring out my dead horse.
David B
Brother Bedard,
ROFLMAO!!! [(-D][(-D][(-D][bow]
In one not so long ago thread, a poster had a photo of one of his club’s block assignment panels. I will be quick to admit that if I was faced by a 400-switch array of toggles I’d change systems in a New York minute!
My version of MZL differs from Sheldon’s in that I do use rotary switches - but not many, and they don’t have to be turned often.
I also use toggles - to control structure lighting, or as manual point throwers for non-powered switches. (Even manual switches need track power routing contacts - and not just for hot frog control.)
Note that I don’t recommend MZL for new or inexperienced modelers, or for anyone who is happy with their present system, DC or DCC. Like my choice of prototype, my choice of control system was driven by a very personal list of givens and druthers.
Above all, have fun.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
And systems like Chuck and I use have been well documented in those same 70 years. And are in fact no harder to build than those with rotary switches or toggles for every “block”, which is what we DON’T have or need with our type of systems. The only soldering I do in building my system is the connections to the very small lighted pushbuttons that control turnouts and cab assignments. All the rest is screw terminals and crimp sleeves with larger, easy to work with 16-18 guage wire or terminal strips with CAT5 cable. No more soldering than some guy with 50-100 slow motion switch machines and mini toggles and LED’s on a DCC layout.
And, if you have never operated on a MZL layout, or a jumper plug layout or a multi cab sectional layout like the DC portion of K-10, how can you judge it? I have operated a number of DCC layouts.
[quote user=“Paul3”]
twhite,
Okay…but let me
Sheldon,
With the system you’ve described who far behind the 1st train can a second train operate along the same length of track, with the same route? Think of a passenger train in 2 sections. They’re both going to the same destination, how far behind the first section is the second section, with independent speed control?
Again, that is a function of layout design and layout operational goals. No answer I give you would be universally correct. On the prototype even a following section would be at least one signal block behind in CTC or ABS controlled teritory. That’s the kinds of modeling I am interested in, I want working signals, above and more importantly than the other features DCC has to offer.
I understand those of you who have different goals, but fact is, with the system I use and the size/scope of the layout I am building, I can have all the control I need and signals for what it would cost just to control the trains with DCC, before you even thought about signals.
Not wanting sound, not needing consisting, and being happy with whatever other compromises, what I have gets me where I want to be for much less. And provides the type of user interface I prefer. I personally dislike most of the DCC handhelds on the market and the endless sequences of button pushing to assign, unassign, consist, etc,etc. you push buttons on a DT400, I push a few puttons on panels spread around the layout, not really much different from where I sit.
Sheldon
Use your layout as an example. How much distance must be between trains using the same route and how does control get changed from cab A to cab B.?
OK Dave–
Having not seen this before–where did you find this lovely Gif–mmmm?[(-D][(-D][(-D]
My layout is a double track continous mainline that will be about 8 scale miles long when complete.
Train lengths are typically 18-25’. Each signal block (and primary electrcal section) is about 2-3 times that, some are longer. So the short answer is the following train will not get a green until the section ahead is empty.
At each interlocking along the mainline there is a panel for turnouts and cab selection which is all done with small lighted pushbuttons. All mainline turnouts, crossovers and diverging routes are selected with the touch of one button. In other words, with a complete interlocking of two oposite crossovers and a diverging route to lets say a yard or branch, one only needs to push one button and all conflicting turnout routes are cleared to the desired route.
With the touch of one more button, the wireless cab in your hand is assigned to the next section.
The trackage through the interlocking requires no cab selection, that is automatic based on turnout position. And is done in such a way as to create a buffer section that prevents a train for over running its assigned trackage.
If you fail to properly assign your cab or align the route, the train will simply stop in the interlocking. It will not be “taken over” by anyone elses throttle.
The layout is designed to support two east bound and two west bound trains on the main, and then has 6 other cabs used in yards, industrial areas and a single track branch line.
The key here is that the layout, signal system, operational scheme and physical configuration are intergrated and designed at the same time. I realize not everyone wants/needs/can do/is interested/etc/etc in doing this.
I have
David,
The bunnies are great.
I don’t want to beat this dead horse, but some apparently were not around when we put him down the first few times.
The book will be finished soon, if things go at least close to the current plan and then I’ll just e-mail them a copy.
Sheldon
Soooo, technically speaking you’re not flipping toggle switches. Instead you’re pushing buttons along the path of the train to make a cab selection. Semantics?
Your posts make it sound like having walkaround DC cabs so you’re “not anchored to control panels” is some new, amazing technology. Its been around for 30+ years and wireless DC is not new either. You talk about being able to install an additional set of pushbuttons “at any logical place they would need to change a cab assignment” as some big benefit of such a DC system. I helped build a DC control system 30 years ago that allowed multiple control panels to control a block. It wasn’t difficult to do, just a lot of wiring. It’s called dispatching and part of the operating scheme design for a layout. The club I was in had 6 mainline cabs, mutiple dispatching panels etc. It’s how it was designed to be operated.
Walkaround DC control is easy. With tethered control you can just add a set of plug ins any “logical place” they’re needed. Wireless is just some additional hardware.
What it really sounds like is that you’ve traded one type of complexity for a more complex system that you believe is better because it means not flipping toggle switches. To each their own.
Yeah, I’d hate for my cat to get loose and find a complex DC system. It would take forever to fix it. With DCC you just connect the 2 wires back up and you’re running. A complex DC system actually sounds neat to me, but it’s still limited to the configuration tha was set up some time in the past. The main difference with DCC is you can do the same things and more without any wiring, button pushing, or switch throwing except for the cab. Kind of reminds me of the Indiana Jones Scene when he confronts an swordsman who dazzles him with a show before attacking. Indiana does a duh look, pulls out his gun and shoots him. The Swordsman being the DC guy of course. Look at me and what I can do. DCC says Just do it and boom. (Here’s the scene for those who never saw it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc
However If a complex DC system runs well and the user’s are happy with it I see no reason to change it, unless a change of the layout is planned.