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In lugnet.trains, Chris Phillips wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, David Koudys wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Chris Phillips wrote:
snip
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Another piece of hardware that any DCC-head could easily make
would be a stand-alone DCC decoder packaged in a 2x4 brick which could be
used to run the motors of automated switch points, roundhouses, decouplers,
or other motorized or lighted trackside structures.
- Chris.
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I’m just going thru my mind (which is always a bad idea), and this would be,
as stated, very easy--
My DCC chip has motor out, and 2 light wires out. Connect ‘em to a electric
plate and we’re good to go!
Lets see--you’ll need a 2x2 electric plate for the connector to the tracks,
a 2x2 electric plate for the motour out, and maybe each light out can have a
separate 2x2 electric plate, or, like in my trains, the light outs are tied
together (one wire is on when the train is moving forward, the other light
wire is for when the trian is moving in reverse)...
So 2x6 is what I’d use, and that’ll fit an HO decoder (which is much cheaper
than the N scale I have inside my train motors...)
I’ll hopefully try that this weekend as well--trip to the hobby store coming
up! (if finances can be found :) )
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Cool. I think that this is the key to getting DCC into wider use. After
all, there are only so many trains that will fit onto a layout unless it is
truly massive. But there are a lot of potentially motorized items on a
layout that could be treated like just another loco in the DCC scheme of
things. If the issues of power draw through the RCX can be resolved, more
decoders can be used on the layout, and a single RCX would be capable of
driving them all. Much cheaper to add a $20 decoder to your layout than a
$200 RCX. And then this would allow all of the logic for all of the
automation to work together in a cohesive fashion, as Ralph has suggested.
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Yes, sounds like fun! And, that DZ123 I recently posted about would be ideal
for the job. I think I’ll have to order one or two more to test this out. One
change to LDCC that would help facilitate this would be the ability to configure
LDCC to know which switches are being powered by accessory decoders vs. mobile
decoders. That way, you could tell LDCC to throw a switch (using the remote or
via LDCCIRP) and it would send the appropriate commands based on the type of
switch decoder.
Also, these mobile decoders wouldn’t be drawing all that much power unless they
were actually in the process of throwing a switch, so I think the RCX wouldn’t
be burdened too much (plus you can always use additional RCXs as boosters if
there is a problem).
Mark
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Trains, DCC, and pbForth
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| (...) Cool. I think that this is the key to getting DCC into wider use. After all, there are only so many trains that will fit onto a layout unless it is truly massive. But there are a lot of potentially motorized items on a layout that could be (...) (20 years ago, 21-Nov-03, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.robotics.rcx.pbforth, FTX)
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