I talked with my electronics engineer a couple of days ago and asked him how the experiment was coming.
His reply was very encouraging! We have decided that there is enough room in the hobby for another kind of train control system. We will call it Digital DC.
The system will have a tiny little ID board with only two wires (positive and negative). The ID board will transmit a signal from the engine to the router. The signal is always the same for a given locomotive. For example; UP 3312 operates on throttle #1. SP 7514 operates on throttle #2. D&RGW 5505 operates on throttle #3. If you have multiple lashups, the ID boards (if any) in trailing units will have to be turned off.
This way several locomotives can be in a consist, but only one board can be transmitting. There is no programming! and no learning curve to know how to use it. It wires up like wiring a light bulb into a locomotive.
In conventional DC, there are throttle selection switches. When multiple throttles are used, they usually take the form of rotary switches. With our system, there is a simple router that knows which train is in its block and sets the throttle acordingly. One simply replaces the rotary switches with a router.
The signals that the locomotives board transmits are in the 100,000 cyc. range which will allow several thousand pulses to be identified and acted upon in less than 10 milliseconds. 10 milliseconds is about how long the lead locomotives first wheel is touching both blocks. There is no hesitation
as the train enters the next block.
The benefits of this control system include collision avoidance. It will be impossible for two trains to collide head-on in the same block. Like conventional DC you must watch your signals to avoid getting two trains into the same block.
The beauty of this system is that there are no switches to throw to get your train into a block, it is automatic! You don't have to put decoders which need programming in locomotives. One board for one train! and it doesn't matter which locomotive it is in.
A sound system can be used and controlled by the throttle that operates that train.
It is not a complicated installation like DCC. If you have never used DCC, you will be on a learning curve, learning how to install it and learning how to program it. If you scew up it up, it may not run at all, or it may become a runaway!
Perhaps the greatest advantage is that while DCC users are programming their trains to run right, you are already running down the track. It takes several minutes to get a new DCC equipped locomotive progrqammed, tested, and running, let alone the installation.
With our system, you are operating while the DCC guys are still programming and testing.
Provided that we do not run into other problems, Digital DC will become a reality.
Shane
You just spent your time describing a system known as analog command control. This type of system has been out since the 1970s. It was superseeded by DCC because DCC has nearly unlimited growth potential. The most Analog Command Control will be able to run is 64 trains. Eneugh for most home layouts, but I know clubs that have up to Powder River Basin coal line density on their tracks. With DCC, a starter system can handle 99 different trains. You move up one level in complexity, (Another booster and some more throttles) after doing some math, I calculated that DCC can handle nearly 2000 trains simultainiously. With your top end systems, no one really knows for sure how many trains it can handle because 2000 is already sufficient. DCC has gotton cheaper to. You can now buy a DCC starter set for nearly the same price you can for two nice power packs needed for two train control in two cab DC wiring. With DCC you can run up to 9999 individual locomotives. (Addresses 1-9999 locomotives. Consist address works differently) As for complicated decoder instalation, That has all but dissapeared. Only vintage pieces and Athearn's standard line are not DCC ready yet. Being DCC ready means all you have to do is plug in a decoder chip, set the address for that of the engine # and your off to the races. That has even become a non-issiue. As of this year Atlas is putting decoders standard in their new locomotives set to the locomotives address, and Spectrum announced that it will start doing so with its line of steamers early next year. Plus Con-Cor has been selling their MP15 equipped with decoders for years. As for installing the system on the model railroad, just run two hook up wires to the tracks. Now how simple is that?
James Mitich
staff member of wiringfordcc.com
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/
[This message has been edited by Challenger (edited 11-26-2002).]