There are other systems that have been in play for many years. LocoLinc is a radio system that has HO recievers and sound available. RailLynx is an infrared system that does not have sound. These systems suggest that there are alternatives to DC and DCC. LocoLinc and RailLynx continue to advertise and support their product, so it is possible for smaller proprietary systems to survive.
Ring Engineering has introduced the RailPro system that would be compatible with DC and DCC track. The consisting features of RailPro would appeal to someone who wants to MU diesels without doing a lot of programming. While there are questions about sustainability of proprietary systems, the above examples suggest that RailPro could thrive with a small market share.
It would be interesting to see how many “DCC ready” locomotives are sold to model railroaders who are still on the fence about DCC. These locomotives could be fitted with any one of the available DCC decoders or other receivers… or remain as DC.
Self fulfilling prophecy? Why not resist negative/unconstructive comments and contribute in a positive way to the topic? I’ve seen it happen before![:P]
Truth be told, and watching the trends in other areas of products, that sounds pretty right on to me. At age 53 I do find myself resisting change and new technology etc. gadgets, so I understand how people feel when they say they want to stay with what they like and keep on using DC. And thats ok for them, nothing is wrong with that. But like anything, one thing you can count on is change, and the evolution of model train control will continue to change. There will probably be a lingering component of DC in engines and train sets and power packs for years to come, but as the DCC or similar technology continues to gain momentum (no pun intended), the percentage will slowly grow. Younger folks are more willing to embrace new technology as mobile man pointed out, and the older generation which relies on DC will be replaced as time passes.
There may be plenty of room for batteries and proprietary radio transceivers in HO and larger scales, but not in N scale and smaller. While the electronics will shrink in time, batteries won’t shrink nearly as well.
To the extent that an emerging technology is not applicable to the second largest and fastest growing segment of the model railroading market, that technology will have a harder time gaining widespread acceptance, standardization, interoperability, etc.
The above would tend to favor an approach that is applicable to at least N and HO scale, which means that at least power will continue to be provided through the rails. Leveraging existing radio technologies like bluetooth and wi-fi holds the most promise of effective wireless communications, small packaging, and most importantly, cost.
But let’s not forget that there are also lots of cheap, effective methods to share power and reliable, two-way communications over two wires.
Where 2-way communications over wires breaks down is that last mile - the rail to track interface. No matter how clean you keep your wheels and track, it’s not an ultr reliable connection. The other problem is getting th esignal back from the on-board system. Getting the signal to the decoder is easy - you cna push as much power intot he railas as you need, there’s no size restrictions. But within the contraints of HO and N or smaller locos, where do you get the enrgy from to send BACK? The current schemes rely on stored energy in a capacitor on the decoder and (in the case of Digitrax) sending when the DCC signal is quiet, a zero crossings, or int he case of Lenz, actually stopping the DCC signal at the command station to listen for the decoder to transmit.
Radio two-way has a better chance, because the radio signal is not the power signal, the transmitter in the loco has a better power source - either an on-board battery or rail pickup, and so can talk whenever and as much as it wants back to the controller.
The issue remains of no standard. If this technology where standardized like DCC< to the point where I could use a loco module from vendor A, and a controller from Vendor B, I would serious contemplate switching, if there were loco modules to fit all my locos. Especially if there was an on-board battery option. That recharges if it’s on powered track. Dirty track? No problem. Reverse loops? Just isolate them completely. But most of all, a standard for the communications between the controller and decoder. And make sure the modules can plug in to 8 and 9 pin decoder sockets currently found in many products - that way the same loco could be used on straight DC, DCC, or the direct radio system, no need for differnet versions of the same loco for all three options.
At least one system is sort of a direct add-on to DCC< in that it goes between the rails and the decoder, responds to the radio control, and generated DCC commands for the decoder. Interesti
For me I found the best of both worlds with my MRC Tech 6…I can run my DC engines and by using my hand held I can operate several decoder equipped locomotives or by pushing the dual mode I can operate one DCC/Sound equipped locomotive…
For the topic…Guessing it still must be split evenly since all new DCC/Sound equipped locomotives have dual mode decoders.
I guess because - for me - there’s nothing positive about speculative conversations. It’s just everyone’s opinion without - generally - any hard facts or conclusions. I like Greg’s suggestion about discussing current sales of DCC vs. DC items. That would give you more concrete information to draw conclusions from - IMO.
What you don’t see under the covers in radio communications is the built-in error detection and correction schemes that provide modern reliable digital wireless communications (especially in low transmit power applications very near brushed DC motors).
If similar error detection/correction were employed in DCC, similar reliability would also be available. As far as networking goes, DCC uses a rather primitive FSK encoding scheme, with only vertical parity (detection, not correction) provided. There is MUCH room for improvement before we presume that wire can’t do the job.
Also, keep in mind that the actual bandwidth required for MR is VERY low. Before sound decoders, most users probably did not know that their decoders were shutting down and restarting due to dirty track, with little or no observable effects. Sound came along (which cannot restart as cleanly), and the fix for dirty track is on the power side (keep-alive caps), not the communications side. Unless we start trying to stream audio to the loco (don’t get any ideas!), bandwidth requirements will remain very low.
Think of radio as a two-wire system (i.e. ground and antenna). What can be done on those two wires can also be done on two real wires.
Tom, we don’t have any hard numbers of sales of DCC vs DC locos any more than we have a good survey of modelers. And Athearn or Walthers are not about to tell us.
But I still content that if DCC locos were dominating sales, DC locos would be dropped. There seems to be no such trend from the manufacturers.
Athearn, Atlas, Intermountian, Bowser and Walther all continue to offer DC versions with each new release. Bachmann has structured their product line around low cost decoders and/or separate sound modules to also appeal to those not really interested in DCC or sound. Even MTH has begun to offer DC versions.
Only BLI continues down the higher priced, all DCC with sound marketing plan, but even they have waffled back and forth in and out of the DC market over the years.
My opinions in my original post come not just from me, but from conversations with several shop owners here in the Mid Atlantic - an area with high number of modelers if NMRA memberships are any indication of such.
But I agree we don’t really know, we can only speculate.
It’s as much a question about power as it is s/n ratio - without a power source, the decoder cannot generate big signal to send over the rails to report back. Remember the Lenz method actually shuts off the DCC signal - 0 volts to the track - to give the decoder a window to transmit. The only energy available is what’s stored int he power supply capacitor on the decoder - that is not going to allow the generation fo 15V signals for seveal packets, so they use millivolts. Perhaps with a supercap as a keep alive the decoder could transmit a signal of several volts amplitude with plenty of ECC. The current systems to checksum the packets for error detection, so it’s not just wide open. The problem is, in reverse, what was wrong with many pre-DCC command control systems - they had a large unmodulated fixed voltage and superimposed a very weak signal on top of it, and that signal was easily swamped or attenutated. DCC makes the signal the power, which gets around this very neatly - when you are talking about the command station communicating to the decoder. That very strength becomes a major weakness when it comes to the decoder talking back - if you stop the sending signal to the command station can listen to the decoder, you also stop the power source the decoder can use to generate said signal. Radio doesn;t have this problem, since the signal and the power are completely isolated. Were you to go back to a pre-DCC superimposed control signal, ay 12V fixed with a 3V P-P signal, you could easily make a bidirectional protocol since the loco decoder would have that fixed track voltage to draw on to create and send the reply messages. But if you’re going to do that, why not just go direct radio?
I’m not sure the number of DC engines being sold, or the number of DCC dual-mode decoders, are a good indication in themselves as to DC’s popularity. It’s fairly easy to build a DCC decoder with a pass-thru circuit to allow DC use, so it’s easy to understand why manufacturers would use it. There are a few engines out there that were designed before DCC were common and that are only available in DC-only versions (like the Bachmann FM H-16-44s used in the MR “Virginian” project layout) but most engines sold as DC engines today are “DCC ready” with an 8- or 9-pin receptacle. I think that may be less a sign that many folks still want DC-only engines, as it is that many folks want to choose which decoder they put in. I may want to pass on buying a sound equipped engine for $200 if I can buy a non-DCC/sound one for $100, and later find a good deal on a sound decoder for $40-50 and install it myself.
Surely there are a number of DCC users buying DCC ready locos and installing their own choice of decoder for various reasons, including a lack of interest in sound or a personal preference in decoders.
BUT, such sales may also be “offset” by DC users like myself who buy DCC locos like those offered by Bachmann and promptly remove and resell the decoders.
AND, I have even bought a few normally too “expensive” locos with DCC and sound from BLI, because they were “on sale” at the right price - and I promptly removed those decoders as well - or in some cases replace whole tenders with non DCC tenders.
Any assumption that all DCC locos sold are being used on DCC layouts, or that all DCC ready locos are getting decoders added would be false by a long shot.
Just like any assumption that all DCC ready locos are being used by DC users would be equally false. I’m sure a fair to large percentage are being bought by DCC users. But the fact
One way to get around the power-for-replying problem would be for the booster to provide some DC voltage instead of shutting completely off during the response interval. Then the responder could superimpose a signal on top of that pretty easily. Depending on the response interval frequency, the booster could reverse the polarity of the DC voltage for each response interval, to retain DC compatibility.
Given the low required bandwidth, there is plenty of time to transmit packets multiple times (with the recipient detecting and ignoring erroneous packets), so error correcting may not be all that necessary. That said, there are far better error detection techniques than vertical parity for noisy serial transmissions (e.g. CRC) with negligible decoding overhead on the decoder (or encoding overhead on the booster for that matter).
5 or 10 years from now, you will see about as many DC layouts as landline telephones. At some point, manufacturers will just stop making DC equipment, just like they stopped making vinyl records, cassette tapes, and 8 tracks, when sales drop below some pre determined level.
I was hoping for an interesting conversation with my original post and that’s what I got. Nice job, very interesting. I would like to add that cell phone technology is evolving at a rapid pace. I have observed several layouts controlled wirelessly with cell phone apps.I would say this is another + for DCC. As the older generation passes, the younger hobbyists are more likely to have smartphones and want them to do just about everything, including control their layouts.
You might be surprised to learn how many people still have land line telelphones, and they still make vinyl records.
Maybe one day they will stop making DC (or DCC ready) locos, but there is NO trend in that direction yet. Broadway Limited alone does not constitute a trend, in fact the trend is slightly in the other direction. MTH added DCC ready to what started out as only DCS/DCC with sound offerings. Bachmann chose to offer the EM-1 only with a low cost non sound dual mode decoder and make sound a plug in up grade. Everyone else still offers both.
It is hard to imagine discontinuing DC locos any time soon.
It is much cheaper and much easier to operate in DC mode. The locos are less expensive and the power supplies are less expensive. Most hobbyists still operate smaller layouts and don’t need the added flexibilty of DCC.
Even BLI locos operate on DC power right out of the box.
DC is here to stay, and that said from a proud DCC operator.
I’m surprise DCC is still around seeing how things has revolved over the past 10 years.
Of course I remember when VCRs and Atari was all the rage and how fast they came and went replaced by newer technology.
I recall when MRC "Golden Power Pack was top notch technology then came their ControlMaster 10 with adjustable track voltage and momentum.Now there’s the Tech 6 that gives you the best of both worlds.
So,in the next 5-10 years who knows?
Maybe in the next 20 years we may hear the question what’s the percentage between DCC users and (say) Super Controler Mark 5?