I want them to add a feature that will automatically control the switches in my turnouts so I don't have to use Toggle switches.
I think you're both right.:tb-cool: Setting standards for new technology will usher in new products (first generation products as I like to call them) which are very costly in order to recoup the research and development costs. Second generation units include refinements and a slight cost reduction. Finally third generation units see a dramatic reduction in cost. Look at BluRay players as an example. I think DCC as it stands today is great and I am using it to the fullest. Whether we like it or not DCC will change due to the steady improvements in or technologies. Does that mean I will be buying the latest and greatest? Not in the near future that is for sure! If I eventually upgrade it is highly possible that someone will be more than happy to take what I have off my hands for a song and a dance. In that case I would have to say we both win.:tb-smile: Jerry
Point taken, I'll stick with the tea, whiskey just makes me a mean drunk. thad Heat makes steam, steam makes work force and the train moves forward, well depending on the position of the Cutoff.
This is absolutely true. Even DCC itself is an example though less dramatic. You can get started in DCC now at a much much lower price point...especially compared to the general inflation of costs in the hobby. The only constant in this world is change. Otherwise, we'd be connecting up car batteries to home made rheostats still and using Open frame high current motors connected to rubberband drives.
So how is ADDING wifi to the decoders and throttles going to make it CHEAPER? You still need the hardware that is specific to model railroading. You still need the decoder in the locomotive to power the motor and lights. You still need the hand held throttles to control the trains. You would still need accessory decoders to control turnouts and signals. I'm sorrry, but adding wifi and/or ethernet connections to these devices is not going to reduce their costs. It's not llike the wifi/ethernet would be replacing some exotic high-speed expensive to implement data bus - the DCC track bus and most command station busses are specifically designed to be low cost solutions. A couple of examples: The only thing you have to add to a decoder to receive the data from the track power is a resistor, and the hardware needed for Loconet is a couple of transistors and some resistors. I just don't see how you can implerment wifi or ethernet for less. If you wanted to go the "PC centered" route, about the only thing you could replace would be the command station, and that would be only if you are willing to give up the abillity to operate without a computer.
While I don't yet know of any systems that will read your mind, it is fairly easy to set one up so that if you approach a turnout from one of the diverging legs, it will automatically throw the turnout if necessary. It is also easy to setup a system so that you can select point A and point B with pushbuttons and it will automatically align all the turnouts along the route.
You can buy an MP3 player, a device that is infinitly more complex than a DCC decoder. For around $5 plus the cost of memory. That's a retail which means the manufacture cost is probably under $1 There is nothing MR specific about a decoder. It's a very very very very very simple IC and some power routing circuitry. So no, there are no additional costs. The costs of handheld throttles could drop (at least for throttles with lots of functions) as the hardware would be commodity based. Plus, Standardized bus would mean interoperability which would force prices down as you wouldn't be locked into a specific manufacturer. This was a joke. See recent Turnout v. Switches: A Trainboard Argument©® threads
That is all true, and is very cool... ... but YoHo was making an in-joke on the brou-ha-ha we had over the use of "switch" vs. "turnout" over in the N-Scale forum. You might not have seen that... and the thread has been closed...
I note that most of the discussion has been about technologies and the applicationof the most up to date ones....all things that get us techies in a tizzy. What we sometimes forget is that the model railrod electronics industry is mostly small companies who don't have the latest graduate engineers in their product development group (if indeed they have a "group"). Also, the price of a product is a function of supply (small) and demand (also small), and the economies of scale are not particularly favorable. So for anything akin to state of the art, there is likely to be significant overhead cost to be accomodated. These arent wireless routers by the million after all. Upgrading merely for technology sake is short-sighted IMO. Even though the technology we use is not the latest, it does the job well, and the manufacturers are able to make a few bux in the process. I have no problems with that.
That does nothing to explain how adding wifi to the decoder will decrease the cost. I don't know how a $5 MP3 player that is sold in numbers orders of magnitude greater than a DCC decoder has any relation to the discussion(that MP3 player may be "infintely more complex," but it still can't run my trains). There most certainly is something model railroad specific about a decoder - the code in that IC and the design and layout of the board. A lot of the cost of a decoder does not go into the components, but in to the development costs, which has to be spread out over a lot fewer units than an MP3 player would. If you add wifi, you're still going to need that very very very very very simple IC and that power routing cicuitry. You would also have the cost of re-writing some of the code and re-designing the circuit board. If you integrate the wifi instead of using an off-the-shelf part, you additionally have the cost of FCC certification. How is that possibly going to be cheaper? Yea, I kind of figured that was supposed to be a joke, though I didn't get it because I had not read that thread.
Well said, the upgrades suggested are not just for technology, they are for the survival of those who make their living from us. Digitrax, NCE, Zimo, Maarklen and every one-man-band start-up ... benefited from LocoNet and NMRAnet will do the same. No one company wants to guess what the new or next standard will be, they want a consensus, standardization everyone on the same train and a route map on the toilet door, that way nobody looses their shirt guessing wrong. You can either get on the train to Silicon Valley or Dogpatch. No company would cry foul at great expectations, if I got my way they might cry a little, but with the legacy criteria no one is going to loose, except the buggy whip company.
\ I hardly consider the 802.11 WiFi spec cutting edge. And further, this comment ignores the impressive work being done under GNU and similar licensing. It also ignores the work of some really smart people volunteering their work for the NMRA. You're also missing the point on economies of scale. The advantages of economies of scale aren't because the Model railroaders are a big market, but because these parts are mass produces for millions of uses. That makes the costs go down. We're not talking about updating technology for it's own sake, but updating technology to add even more features to the system. DCC currently CANNOT do these things, so saying it's good enough generally is a mistake. It may be good enough for you, but that's different.
When are all the people who think a DCC system run from a USB connection on a PC and using Wi-Fi enabled decoders is viable going to be releasing their new system? If it’s so easy and all the hardware is available off the shelf, package a system and I’ll buy it. I already have two spare PCs that I can dedicate to my layout. That is assuming you can market it at a lower price then existing DCC systems. And the decoders need to fit in N scale locomotives… And sound would be nice…
I'm old enough to remember the hobby in the pre-DCC standard days and when people were screaming about how DC was good enough and we didn't need the distraction of this DCC thing because "I can already do everything I need to without it." They're just talking about proposing additional standards, people. Its not going to affect the way you run right now or later, unless you want it to. Its hard to understand the opposition to additional standards.
We're in a standards proposing phase, being easy and being fast are not the same thing. We want to do it right, which is why its being discussed now in the proposal phase. This is exactly right. I've been putting off mentioning it. There are still plenty of model railroaders that say they don't need DCC, that it's dumb. That DC is more than good enough for everyone. That puts a bunch people in this thread on the other side of the argument defending their over priced unneeded DCC. Just do multi-cab block wiring like a real man! 110 V house current is for sissys. Get some hair on your chest and use a car battery. It was good enough for modelers in the 40s and 50s. Only lazy techno-nerds would want something more!
I don't have any problem with additional standards, I just don't think wifi and ethernet are the way to go. For a wired model railroad bus, I think a CAN bus(which is what NMRANet is based on) makes more sense than ethernet. It has plenty of bandwidth for a model railroad and is easier and cheaper to implement than ethernet. Likewise, something like Zigbee(which I believe the new duplex Digitrax radios are based on) makes more sense than wifi for a wireless bus. Although not necessarily any cheaper to implement, it has plenty of bandwidth for a model railroad, would be easier to implement, and is more suited to the application. I also don't see the need for wireless communications to the locomotive in most situations, although I can see how it would be advantageous in some circumstances, such as outdoor railroads where you have a lot more trouble keepng the track clean, but you also have room for batteries. I would have no problem with the NMRA adopting a wireless to the locomotive standard as long as it was optional and did not abandon the current method of getting the signal through the rails. I have had absolutely no problems with my engines getting their data through the rails and have no desire for my decoders to cost more just to have wireless communications.
I would like to see the wireless coms be an option as well. I think there will always need to be an on track coms even though I think that those 2 rails make a terrible transmission line and would prefer not to. But at least for the near term Z scale and N scale are more likely to need to use it. And in point of fact, it isn't limiting. there are power line ethernet standards as well. Or, it could be a conversion back to the as implemented DCC spec. Much as a rail against it, DCC does provide most of the functions for the locomotive. To me, Wireless would be a better coms network, but I'd accept both. But converting to TCP/IP would have many addressing advantages. Also, at least one of the proposed standards. S9.6 is intended to be bus agnostic. Which is absolutely the best way to go. CAN has many advantages, but being bus agnostic, or at least having a range of buses will avoid forcing a square peg in a round hole. I'm not convinced CAN makes sense for accessories. Especially on large layouts. TCP/IP over Ethernet (or UDP/IP) and WiFi have the kind of bandwidth and scaling features that large home and club layouts would use. CAN makes sense if we're talking about a bedroom sized layout, but even that is getting pretty big for that network. There's also just more off the shelf ethernet and Wifi ready equipment out there to be tinkered with.
Although I've stated a sort of preference for wireless in future I've been contemplating what looks like a fly in the ointment. Even today wireless congestion is affecting many domestic wifi systems in heavily populated areas, so having your trains on the same systems could get a bit 'interesting', much as R/C modellers sometimes have issues with other users on the same frequency. (Coding the signals only goes part way to solving this since if the competing signal is strong enough it will disrupt the wanted signal to the point of unreadability.) I'm guessing too that due to the limited space for antennae for most decoders they may not be good transmitters and so the two-way comms that are being asked for may be even more at risk. As such I'd think wifi is maybe not a such a good idea, so perhaps bluetooth, zigbee or something like them might be a better way to go.
I think you're overstating the congestion issues. We're not talking about a public WiFi network. We're talking about a home network. I would think for a very connected home with a large layout, the answer would be to simply add a second Access point on a different channel. Contention could potentially be an issue, but the restriction on devices is potentially lower on Bluetooth. There are some artificial restrictions on Wifi access points, if this were to move beyond just standards, those could be lifted for this kind of product. Blue tooth has an even shorter effective range. Wifi Antennas are actually quite small. So I don't see that as an issue. The wifi antenna in say an iPod Touch would be easy to fit in a locomotive. The largest layouts would likely have repeaters anyway. Just like they would with current DCC. I could see Blue Tooth as a standard if the range limitations are overcome. What I like about ethernet and wifi though is that it is completely a commodity. You cannot buy a computer that doesn't have either an Ethernet port or a wifi card or both. Small processors, ASICs and the like come with built on Ethernet of some form. And will have more than enough bandwidth today to support the most bandwidth hungry applications such as video and audio streaming from small cameras on the layout or 2 surround speakers on the layout. I think the trick is to used Wired ethernet where possible and Wifi where needed. (mobile and isolated locations) By its very nature, ethernet can support millions of addresses. Further, by supporting Ethernet, you get integration with PCs, smartphones/pads/Touches, Modern TVs, Modern Audio Equipment, etc etc etc. The world is connecting with ethernet. And while I don't know of any killer MR apps that would use that integration, I can think of a could general concepts such as the aforementioned Video and Audio concepts that could get there pretty quickly.
