Is DCC dead??????????
- Thread starter Tim Brien
- Start date
Zerogee said:
Jon, I agree that it should be possible for EU legal 869MHz chips to be substituted at little or no extra cost. However, the notes on the Airwire site echo the reply that I received from Tam Valley that another transmitter in the vicinity would have the potential to swamp their 900MHz or 869MHz transmitters cutting off data links. As these frequencies are unlicensed and used for a variety of purposes, the potential problems may not come from another model railway user. Personally, I would prefer a little additional cost to have the systems moved up to 2.4GHz to provide the sort of rock solid links we currently get from analogue radio control. I have been in exhibition situations where 10 to 20 transmitters have been in active use in very close proximity with no interference between any of them.
As to the initial question posed in this thread, I cannot see the Bachman offering being any sort of threat to DCC. There will be for a very long time a significant customer base for DCC that want to hook control through a command station and then via the track, particularly where they want to control the layout as well as locomotives. What Bachman, and Massoth have correctly identified is that there is also a customer base of people that has been ignored in Europe who want digital control of their trains with direct links from handheld to locomotive, who don't necessarily want to incorporate control of points , signals etc. Personally, I think that both companies have, in their different ways, gone about it in the wrong manner - Bachman for their non-standard approach, and Massoth for their use of 433MHz radio. There is clearly strength for the end users in the standardisation approach so that choices can be made between suppliers of hand held cabs and decoders. All that is needed is for the communication mechanism to be standardised so that control and data feedback can be sent by whatever chosen mechanism, track, wire, Wifi, 2.4GHz radio, Bluetooth Smart, etc. The addition of a 2.4GHz transceiver to the hand held and the locomotive to provide the two way secure link is clearly viable and not prohibitively expensive as has been shown in the non-DCC Ring Railpro system. Massoth were almost there by designing a hand held unit that could be wired to the command station or have a transmitter plugged in and planning for a receiver to be plugged into the decoder.
David
Trainman58
When I grow up I want to be Compo- minus the feret
Hi Jon,Zerogee said:
It does exist but not for battery DCC as I understand it. We have since done it but only with HO decoders. Having said all that my son reckons I should hand in any cell phones I own because I am technically challenged! The term he actually used was Technodik- very unkind to his loving father methinks!!
Beddhist
Motorcycle travel, trains
Yes, the Airwire Convrtr allows the use of any DCC decoder, but it is limited to 2.3A continuous. In my rail truck I have used the Zimo MX645. It seems to work reasonably well on 12V (tested with a drill battery). On 24V it didn't want to run properly, with the engine stalling, esp. in reverse and the sound was also affected. I now have a 4S Lipo installed and it behaves a bit like with the 24V battery. Reading the blurb they say that motor wires too close to the receiver and/or noisy motor can affect the Convrtr. Some more testing will be required, but I have put it aside for now and have started on the Davenport (identical setup).
And yes, it is meant to be used with batteries.
And yes, it is meant to be used with batteries.