As DCC is not cost effective for some of us to run a couple-three trains on our smaller layouts, mine is 5x12, how many of you still use a toggle switch control panel like I do?
Although I have updated, using printed circuit boards (PCB’s) and infrared (IR), some of the 50’s-60’s ideas found in magazine articles for creating a block control panel, I still use the tried and true “control panel” with toggle switches on my layout.
If anyone is intrested in doing their own PCB’s let me know, my e-mail is in my profile, and I’ll share with you the circuit diagrams and PCB layouts that I’ve created.
I used to use the CTC with toggles and stuff. My opinion changed when I saw what DCC can do. It is pretty amazing stuff. And now that systems are getting cheaper and decoders easier to install, I just can’t ever see myself trying to back to dual cab control and the hassles of switching blocks. I want the most prototypical running out of my trains and DCC gives it to me.
I am still in the primary building of my 5 x 12 HO layout. I have it estimated that the cost of the control panel with toggles, LEDs, wire, etc. for my 25 block layout will cost less than $100. This cost is less than one-third the cost of a basic digitrax DCC and decoders.
I am a prototypical modeler and would like to see (when the time comes) prototypical operations.
What function(s) of DCC vice DC would make the operation more prototypical?
The smaller your layout, the more you will appreciate DCC. More prototypical operation is possible in every sense. Operating two locomotives in close proximity is a fact of life on small layouts, but one which is pretty much impossible on blocked (DC) layouts. Either your blocks are really short, requiring all kinds of throwing of switches, or the blocks are long, and the engines can’t get close to each other.
I know it sounds like a cliché, but DCC lets you drive the trains, not the layout. You can run different engines at different speeds and in different directions on the same track.
The cost of a Digitrax Zephyr (their entry level system that lets you use your old power pack as a throttle) is less than $200 US. You do have to add a decoder for every engine, but with all the wiring, switches and so on that you don’t have to buy, plus the more straightforward constuction/wiring makes me think DCC is the way to go.