DCC & DPDT, 22 Gauge Wire, Cab A, Cab B It's Sunday, and it all started out relatively quiet and peaceful. "Big Bear Lake, where the motor boats a putin...", lyrics borrowed from Mel Blank. Terry, a mountain man at heart drove the circuitous mountain roads to arrive at Big Bear Lake with his Digitrax, Zephyr, Digital Command Control and a handful of DCC locomotives. The headlines should read, DCC arrives in the Big Bear Mountains, Big Bear Lake, CA.. Wow, I could not believe my eyes and ears with what I saw and heard... on my layout! What I don't understand is why nothing has been said? Unless I missed it somewhere...well...read on. It's like it's some big secret and we can't tell anybody. Shhh, this will be just between us...ok? OK! Now, before I go and get all excited, like I'm not already. Let me set this up for you. Here's how I installed my electrical system. This may be important to some of you. Real important and good news. I use DPDT toggle switches, to route Analog DC, Cab A or Cab B to specific blocks in order to be able to operate more then one train at a time. Old school...for sure but FUN! Keep in mind there is no common wire or common rail...I wouldn't touch that way and means of wiring with a six inch pencil let alone a ten foot pole. In anticipation of the possibility of changing over to DCC, I used a household, 14 gauge wire as a bus line that serves all my control panels...running from both transformers Cab A and Cab B, around to the backside of each control panel. From the bus to the control panel, I use 18 gauge wire to thread all the DPDT's together. All my drop wires (the ones soldered to the track) are 20 or 22 gauge. The feeder wires ("Home Runs" which really has more to do with household wiring or baseball...grin) the ones that run from the DPDT's to the drop wires (as per block) is: Wire runs less then 2 feet I use 20 gauge wire, 3 to 6 foot runs I use 18 gauge wire. All wire joints or splices are soldered. All of the rail joiners are soldered including Kato track sections (be careful you can melt the plastic). One more factor to consider: I heard tell you have to have wire drops in place, every three feet. My wire drops are in the middle of track blocks 6 to 9 foot long and one 12 footer. Now let me ask you, is this the way we've been instructed to wire-in DCC? You are so right... NO! Not at all. Did I make that clear enough? Please, feel free to re-read the above as it is important you get this. DCC, Analog DC, DPDT, 20 or 22 gauge wire, Cab A or Cab B and it all operates flawlessly. The Story: DCC comes to my layout. I figured that once Terry, got his DCC unit hooked up it would all be over but the crying. It's what happens next that blows my mind and gave me a freeze over brain fart, all but blowing a brain cork and leaving me... well...numb! Ok, I had to step out and take a nitro...darn angina...won't leave a guy alone when he is having fun. Terry, rails a locomotive in an area where I don't have any wire drops, yet (still under construction), on a block longer then 12 feet at about 9 feet from a feeder wire (a future block, still connected to an older block, as I haven't cut in the gaps...yet). At a point furthest from the feeder wires. The locomotive starts-up with a diesel whine, the pop off valve on the air releases, lights come on dim and then onto high, the whine of the motor picks-up, two short's on the horn and the diesel begins to move...what? What? WHAT? Bell ringing! It continues out and onto the main, around the layout with one...oop's. Steve, having joined us for Terry's Demo., as I'm trying to find a short or whatever it is that's wrong. You see, the night before, I had to solder a rail joiner as it had oxidized (nickel silver) and wasn't allowing current through. We can talk more about this issue later. Back to the same spot from the night before. I rechecked the solder joint with a meter and I couldn't find any current...before or after. There wasn't any juice in that block. Steve questioning, I wonder if we have a switch off? I look down at the control panel and with a sheepish grin on my face, flip the toggle switch over to cab B. That did it! Power up and available. We were off and running. Now get this, GET THIS...WITH ABSOLUTELY NO FURTHER INTERRUPTIONS OR PROBLEMS! laugh:Yeehaw! Terry, stood there with an, "I told you so", look on his face and twinkle in his eye. I could of swore, a whole lot of pride! This should be headline news... for all of you out there! IT WORKS ON MY LAYOUT...IT SHOULD WORK ON YOURS! Why has this been kept such a secret? err: Do you think it's time to make it happen? Share the word! Disclaimer: Only...If, your layout is wired, similar to mine.eek: Precaution: If you are new to DCC. I wouldn't advise operating DCC with Analog DC simultaneously. It can short out the works and cause damage to a decoder. A add on edit revised June 2, 2011 by BRick. Please read on, this thread has other cautions as well as a discussion on the pro's and con's.
Rick: As I've saidmany times on phone callas to you, it's time to change over to DCC. All you have to do is hook the command station to your mainline rails. (Two wires) Now you're off and running. You can refine all the exact wiring at your convenience down the road. In the meantime you'll be enjoying all the concepts of DCC. Have fun with your new experiences in model railroading.
First of all, while some people do suggest feeders every three feet, I don't think most do. The suggestion I see most is about every six feet, so your six to nine feet is close. I think the "three feet" suggestion originated with people who suggested putting feeders on every section of track and the fact that most flex track is about three feet long. You can often get away with running DCC with wiring that is less than what is suggested, but I'll explain why you shouldn't. There are really two reasons. The first has to do with voltage drop through the wire and the fact that it is directly porportional to the amount of current running through the wire. With DC, you are very unlikely to be running more than one train from one cab. As an example, if you're powering one train with light gauge wiring you might not ever have enough of a voltage drop for it to be noticeable; however, if you have five similar trains being powered through the same wiring at the same time, the voltage drop becomes five times as great and more likely to be noticeable. The other, and more important, reason is to insure that if you have a short the circuit breaker will detect it and shut down power. If you have a short with light gauge wiring, the higher resistance of the wiring can prevent the short from drawing enough current to trip the circuit breaker, though it couild still be drawing enough current to melt ties or do other damaged(This is why the "quarter test" is important).
CSX Robert, Good to hear from you. In concept, I agree fully with you. That's why I figured it wouldn't work. The kicker, to this whole experience is: We did operate more then three trains. More then...five units out there running at one time. We did not operate in the same block at the same time. I believe this is what makes it do able. Now if we start bunching up then I would expect problems. However, the rule of the rail is we leave a block open between each operating train. Similar to the big boys on the 1X1 foot scale. Gosh is this the neatest thing? More news to share just no time at the moment...oh heck I can't wait...read on. Bob, Powersteamguy 1790, I now own one DCC locomotive and possibly one Prodigy Advance Controller. Steve, needs to make sure his equipment, picked up at a Barstow Swap Meet, will work before he relinquishes his or this unit. Gosh, I didn't know it could be this easy, this much fun and I sware smoother running. You own the right to give me a big, "I TOLD YOU SO"! I can handle that! Thanks for the come back.
A word of apprecitation and gratitude. A shout out to Terry, aka BNSF971, to say THANK-YOU! Steve and I enjoyed the visit and all the good news. As we have built similar layouts, one in HO and the other in N scale, with similar wiring techniques. This comes as very good news to both of us. Terry, Please feel free to visit anytime. Thanks!
I can see that. For now it looks to be expensive but well worth each nickel, dime and quarter... I can save up. Thanks Bob for your encouraging words and information shared. I wouldn't have an interest in DCC, if you hadn't kept after me. When Terry offered to bring his equipment up to give us a first hand look. When we learned it will operate on our layouts. All I can say is...WOW! There are two more DCC converts to be added to the call board. Let the fun begin. My layout! It works on my layout! Amazing!
Rick: All you need is two wires to convert from DC to DCC plus the command station. You have one DCC equipped locomotive. You're ready to roll. Just do the conversion slowly. I still have Kato diesels from years gone by that I haven't converted to DCC yet. They haven't been run in years. Eventually I'll convert them over.
The recommendations for anything less than, say, 3 foot spacing of drops, unless you have isolated sections in there, I take as just extra insurance that you won't have any problems. At my club we have drops every 18 inches or so, the idea being that we could potentially run a lot of stuff at once and that we also didn't want the signal dropping out too much. It's probably total over-kill, but it's done. What are we going to do now? Pull half the wiring out? Glad to see you're having fun, Rick. I use mostly DCC now and I love it. DCC is all I use at home except for testing DC locomotives before I convert them.
Bob, I will continue to operate with analog DC until I get more equipment switched over. I will only change out my DCC Ready equipment to start with. To experiment with the rest of my stuff as I'm able. Thanks again!
Thanks, I think what happens is we simply don' know how something is going to work until we try it. I could accuse you of overkill with wire drops every 18 inches or paranoia, I said with a twinkle in my eye and a hint of a grin. You could accuse me of being paranoid and waiting so long to get on the band wagon. This could continue until someone gets mad or we are laughing hysterically. I'll pass the finger pointing off to someone else. What I couldn't believe is how well the Digitrax, Zephyr unit worked and ran trains on my layout...AS IS!. Absolutely amazing. The point I want to make here to others like me, paranoid or not, it worked on my layout and if, a big IF, you are wired up similar...it should work on your layout. Just trying to get others past the same dark cloud, the fear factor, I was hiding under. I needed answers to questions and needed to see it work with my own eyes. Not sure about the brain...grin! I sure had a bunch of questions answered Sunday, amazing, simply amazing.
The thing about drops is that one can add more if necessary. The decision to go every 18 inches was made before I joined the club and so I just went along with it. I have to say that we have trouble-free DCC operation. I can't always say the same for the track or the rolling stock, but at least the DCC isn't causing any problems. Here's the big thing. You want the signal strong enough that if you have a short at some point that it registers as a short and trips the breaker on the unit. Without that you could potentially weld a loco to the rails. If your layout passes the quarter test (intentionally shorted out with a quarter at several points - we checked every 9-12 inches) then you're probably in the clear. If not, then the section failing the quarter test may need another set of drops. I also try to remove the fear people have of converting to DCC. Converting layouts isn't really that big of a deal. The loco conversions are more difficult for those with legions of legacy locomotives, but for those of us who re-entered the hobby only a few years ago and changed scale at the time this is not a significant issue.
Rick and Steve were also afraid to attempt an install of a decoder in a locomotive. We broke out Rick's soldering iron and did a hard-wire install in an HO scale Atlas/Kato GP7. The install took about 20 minutes, including finding all the stuff to solder with... While the install wasn't as clean as some I've done when I had all my own stuff sitting in front of me, the locomotive works as intended, headlight works on command, and it's programmed with the unit number. I also showed them how to MU that engine with one I had brought with me. Steve's layout will be a little more involved as far as converting to DCC, because he has 3 or 4 reverse loops in it, and those will have to be wired with reversing units.
The DCC unit Rick now has is one of those exceedingly rare Atlas factory-DCC equipped VO1000 engines (ATSF zebra-stripe, of course). Even more rare is the fact it runs well, and is pretty quiet. I'd changed the CV's for acceleration and deceleration, as well as top end, so it runs like a switch engine should.
Rick: Once you start running DCC, the learning is steep for about four days. After that, DCC becomes easy. I'm still learning different concepts after almost ten years now. Learning all the different sound decoders keeps you motivated.
Rick, I a few weeks, I will be headed down your way to photo the missing segments of track scenery for my layout. If you need help with DCC, I have been doing it for years:thumbs_up: Let me know if you need any help!
David, Thank-you. I will give you a holler. With regards to your visit to Barstow, I will see if I can get off this mountain.
