Where to learn about DCC, plug and play, electronics for beginners

I have 2 Bachman trains. A starter set and recently purchased G scale 4-6-0. I’m baffled by the electronics. Plug and play ready for a sound card but poking at site I could not figure out what sound card would work. It has switches to run off battery power but how do I install it? I really need to learn more about the electronics. Can anyone suggest books or YouTubes for a beginner?

Kalmbach has several books. G/F scale is going to battery/radio, but if you want to use DCC or do indoor scales, I’d recommend one of the several DCC books out there, Kalmbach or otherwise. You want to learn first what DCC actually IS (at least half the people who use it don’t understand what it is), the components of the system like the command station, booster, throttle, throttle network, booster bus, mobile decoder, stationary decoder, etc, and how data flows through them.

Once you have the fundamentals down, then you want to look at DCC systems. The books are all outdated in terms of the specific hardware, but will get you going with the fundamentals. They will most likely have outdated legacy systems like Digitrax, Lenz, and NCE, but the same basic principles apply to modern systems.

Looking for a system, you should be looking at:

  1. DCC-EX EX-CS1B
  2. TCS CS-105 or LT-50
  3. YaMoRC YD7010
  4. ESU Cab Control or ECoS
  5. Roco Z21

MRC is also promising their new Nexxt system soon, which looks really interesting, Wi-FiTrax has some cool systems, including Wi-Fi receivers for large scale that work with regular DCC decoders, and CVP has a good large scale radio system for battery power as well that works with regular DCC decoders.

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Welcome to the forum, Joey1!

I don’t have the answer to your question, but you may get some good results by reposting your question on the Garden Railways forum. There are quite a few G scale user on that thread who could give you information.