i was wondering about two cabs on a tmcc unit would it work???
the other thing that i was wondering about is will linoel ever come out with the tmcc chips???
also could i take them to my linoel visator center and have them instal them??[sigh]
Hi Oscale ! I wonder if you meant , 2 cab-1 controllers ? If so, though I only have 1 now, before my boy & I each had a cab-1 & he would control his train & I would control mine on the same track. Also, I could go over & override his if needed or just pu***he panic button & shut down everything.
Sorry I can’t answer your other questions. Hope this helps !
You can ave multiple CAB-1’s talking to the same command base. You can even “fight” over the same locomotive. Lionel does not sell upgrades EXCEPT for a few locomotives that were sold as “command ready”. These units could have the electronic E-Unit board pulled and a TMCC receiver board installed to replace it. If you want to investigate getting older locomotives or new non-command units converted check with TA Studios http://www.tastudios.com/ or Digital Dynamics http://www.digitdynam.com/.
Our club has had up to 6 CAB-1s operating at the same operating session (one Command Base for the layout). It works fine with some exceptions.
The issue is collisions of commands. If one guy is holding the whistle button for an extended period, another person trying to issue a command may not get through or the two units addressing the Command Base at the same time end up being garbled at the Command Base and it does not respond with any commands to the track.
It does not do any good to have multiple CAB-1s and Command Bases at different frequencies (i.e. change the crystals) as all the Command Bases will apply their signals to the same track and thus the signal is garbled at the track instead of over the air between the CAB-1s and Command Bases.
Different frequencies for CAB-1s and Command Bases are only useful for when two independent layouts are in the same area, such as a train show.
Even then, two independent layouts in close proximity can have the 455 kHz track frequency bleed over to each other, causing some interference. At our club, the TMCC demo layout in the retail train shop would interfere with the large club layout which was two walls and 30 feet away.
Regards,
Roy