DCC For Garden Railways

[Allan T]

 

   Help please

  I am constructing a Garden railway and would like to set it up with DCC power control

  Would the new Bachmann Dyamis Infrared system be suitable ?

  If so what would be needed, or what other system would I need for the job, Planned  rail length 450ft

[cacole]

I don't think anything that uses IR would be advisable outdoors, where the sun is going to be emitting more IR energy that the Dynamis and could cause control problems. 

I use battery power and the AirWire 900 wireless DCC system from CVP Products of Richardson, Texas, and would consider nothing else except a similar system that uses no power on the track and never requires any track cleaning other than clearing away items that might be large enough to cause a derailment.  Keeping track clean enough for reliable DCC operation on an indoor HO layout is bad enough.

If you do decide to go with track power, consider the North Coast Engineering PowerPro 10 Amp Radio throttle system.  We use the PowerPro Radio 5 Amp system on a large club layout and I have it for my indoor HO layout, and have never had any problems with losing control. 

[altterrain]

Ditto on the IR outdoors. It won't work unless you're in the shade all the time. I'm not a fan of DCC in large scale as I have not seen it work reliably but if you do go with DCC invest in stainless steel track. The guys who I seen online with working DCC all seem to have stainless.

-Brian 

[g. gage]

We tired using infrared detectors outdoors and was not satisfactory, to much IF from the sun even in some shady conditions. IF is also line of sight, like tv remotes. I use Aristo Train Engineer (27 mhz) with track power, I can walk along with my train. Our railroad is a 450' L shaped loop with the TE mounted near the mid point. At the far end I have to hold the remote high in the air to get response. If I choose to get more tech the TE can be installed in a battery car (remote and TE are next to each other), maybe batteries onboard, etc. building a step at a time. I'm waiting for feedback on Aristo's 2.4 ghz line of RC, sounds interesting. Just a few thoughts so consider.

Hope this helps, Rob  

[GearDrivenSteam]

Glad to see you're at least getting some answers. I asked about DCC and DCS in large scale a while back and got nearly nothing.

[Jim Agnew]

Allan, I've been using an 8amp Digitrax Chief with a NCE 10amp booster with a DT400R transmitter for over 8 years. I use NCE800SR Decoders. I remotely throw my switches using a DS54 to control air solenoids.