I have installed my turntable (DCC HO) and am now laying out the tracks that will go into the roundhouse I will scratchbuild. I have one of the tracks laid and wired and everything works fine. But before I go any further I would like some suggestions on how to be able to individually power down the various tracks leading into each of the roundhouse stalls. I want to be able to have my DCC Sound engines sitting in the roundhouse and not have them all start talking to me when I power up the layout. Then I can individually power up the roundhouse tracks of the engines I want to run or just listen to. So, I am hoping that I can get several suggestions about the best way to do this.
Wow! I’m confused I have about eight sound engines that I installed the decoders in and one of the new budget Bachmann’s with sound. All of them will go into the sound mode on power up. Is this something new? All of my sound decoders except the Bachmann are older Soundtraxx DSD-100C, most I would guess are at least 5 years old if not older. I have to toggle through all the engines numbers and use function 8 to quiet them down. I can find nothing in the owner’s manual that I think relates to sound activation only when the engine is addressed. Same with the Bachmann but I know it’s a cheap decoder in that one. I have one MRC steam decoder that will go quiet on it’s own after about two minuets if I don’t move the engine. Maybe mine are just to old to have that feature.
I have several Bachmann steam locos with Tsunami sound. Whenever I turn on the layout all of these locos that are on the layout will immediately sound off. I know that I can go to each individual loco and shut off the sound, but the next time I power up the layout I will be back to where I started. Are you saying there is a way to shut off the sound until it is later turned on during another operating session? Also, is it better to not have power running thru a loco if you are not going to use it? Or does it not really make any difference?
There does not seem to be a happy solution to this. With many decoders it seems that you can make a CV change so the the sound is either “off” on power up, or “on” on power up. The problem with the sound set to be off on power up is that every time you have a power interruption like a short the loco will go through it’s start up cycle again.
The power interruption problem you mention sounds like another reason for having my roundhouse tracks set up so that I can turn them on or off at will.
You can set up each round house track as its own block. The block will have two power leads to it. All you need to do is install a single pole, single throw toggle switch in one of the leads.
It’s a good idea to do this for each track, regardless. A bit of insurance if for some reason you don’t trottle down to “0”, killing power to the track will stop the potential for any “creaping”. If many sound locos are in the roundhouse and elsewhere within the block inrush on powering the layout can cause a district breaker to trip. Maybe not an issue on most home layouts, but on our club layout this is done for all engine storage and staging tracks. On some occasions, there could be a dozen or more sound locos starting and have had issues in the past, this is especially true for shows when engines are placed/ staged all over.
I agree with Maxman and Bogp40,That is the easiest,and most reliable way,you could mount your toggles on your fascia near the roundhouse,with the track numbers on them for the stalls…
There is a very simple solution to this, and what I did on my layout. I have a control panel with a diagram of the roundhouse/turntable area and ALL the tracks are wired through a small toggle switch. Only one rail of each track needs to be wired to the toggle switch, all the others are fed from the same side bus. I only turn the track on that I want to operate and all the other locos are quiet since they have no power to them. I also added a green LED on each track on the panel so I know which tracks are ‘Hot’ so to speak. If I can find the photos of the back of the control panel after it was wired I will post it here later.
-Bob
Found the photo! Don’t know why it is sideways? If you click on the photo it seems to turn it rightside up? :o)
Thanks to all, even though I don’t have a round house, I had a yard and engine house that I kept the engines parked. I had toogle switches to keep the engines quiet on all the sidings. Whew, I thought I was really missing something.
Amazing DCC doesn’t really eliminate the toogle switch, which as an old guy I still like that feeling of manual control, not always but sometimes.
I also like the idea of a simple toggle connected to one rail of each track. If you have a split-ring turntable, make sure you maintain the correct polarity when wiring the stall tracks.
Another option is a rotary switch, with one position allocated to each stall. This insures that one, and only one, stall track is active at a time. You may like, that, or you may not if you want to idle an engine with sound while moving another in another stall.
What Mr. B said. That’s the simplest answer. Much simpler than a bunch of toggle switches, although I can see why people do that. I have a dozen tracks, with the TT controlled by a New York Railway Supply drive. One rotary switch control the TT position, the other controls power to the finger tracks.
I run DC, so don’t have any pesky sound-equipped locos to deal with, nor do I have a roundhouse. However, I do have a turntable and loco shop and some sidings within the vicinity where locos may be parked. I installed a rotary switch, with a toggle switch to control power to it:
Simply select the desired track, flip the toggle to “ON”, and use the throttle to move the loco. The switch controls all of the dead-ended sidings to the right of the double track main line in the photo below,with the car shop in the right foreground, and the coal/sand at the coaling tower, with the other switch positions roughly left-to-right in the distance:
When I turn off the power and later turn it back on, my sound-equipped locos remain silent unless and until I select their cab numbers.
I have a non-DCC Walthers 130’ turntable with nine roundhouse stalls running off it. I do not use any toggle switches, and I have no blocks. All of the stalls are wired just like the rest of the layout. No creeping or other problems.
I don’t understand why all of you guys have all of these problems and go to such great lengths to avoid them.
Although I have DCC, I’m a pretty low tech guy. Each track leading from my turn table to the roundhouse is given a number and that number shows above the stall on the round house. On my control panel for my yard/engine service area, is a schematic of the yard and roundhouse. Around the round house are numbered push buttons corresponding to the track they operate. When I want to bring and engine out; or, put one in, I simply push the corresponding button to power up the track. Simple, cheap and pretty fool proof.
It’s not the NCE power system that does it. It’s the decoders. I haven’t messed with trying to find this setting, so not sure how it works with Tsunamis. However, most of my sound is Tsunami and it defaults to sound on on power up by the command station (in my case, the exact same PH Pro as yours.)
On the other hand, interrupt power while the Tsunami is working and the dang headlight has to be turned back on manually by default.
I guess, pick your poison, although I’m not sure headlight on power up is an option with the Tsunami at all [:(]
Anyone know more about these settings?
One more thing about the toggle switch versus rotary switch option. If you do want a roundhouse full of live steam sounds, then you should use multiple toggle switches, as you can have more than one loco powered up and sounding with them. With a rotary switch, you can have power to just one track at a time.
