Returnee

[logicman49]

I haven't worked on my trains in years but have boxes of stuff. I never used DCC since it was not used when I was active.  My question is can I purchase the Basic Wiring book and still use the old style of wiring and after I get up and running get some basic DCC book and perhaps add something later? I do not want to go DCC and get frustrated.  I would rather go with what I know.  Any thoughts?

Steve

[Phoebe Vet]

I did just exactly that.  Returned to model railroading after being out for 40 years.  I had never even heard of DCC when I bought Thomas the Tank Engine to have for the grandchildren to play with.  I bought a trainset that included a Bachmann EZ Command and played with it while I began building the layout.  It took only a few days to decide that DCC was so much better than DC that it would be foolish to go backward.  The layout is now a 16x16 around the room,powered by a Digitrax Super Chief and I have absolutely never second guessed the decision.

To answer your question...  Yes, you can wire for DC and later just turn on all your separate zones and replace the DC pack with a DCC pack, but why bother.  It will be easier to just start with DCC.

If you are in doubt, pick up

DCC Made Easy, 48 Pages, 100 Color Photos, Softcover
Walthers Part # 400-12242, p. 988 Walthers 2009 HO Scale Reference

It's a Kalmbach Book, so I'm sure it's available somewhere on this website.

[jamnest]

I have wired both DC and DCC layouts.  DCC is much easier and less expensive in the long term to wire.  There is a lot of free DCC informaion on the Internet.

[selector]

It is with a bias imparted by my own nearly 4 years in DCC, but I also returned to the HO world after nearly 40 years away from toy trains.  What got me hooked was not the DCC operation but the steam locomotive sounds coming from the engine.  I took it home and played with it on a DC system I had handy.  Finally, about three months later and a new layout set up, I decided I was unhappy with flipping switches to get the engine to do its few things it could do in strictly DC ops.  Ironically, this is what DC ops is all about...flipping switches.

I bit the bullet and invested in older technology, the Digitrax Super Empire Builder.  It is a limited system, but its two most important advantages for me, at the time, were the 5 amps available to the rails and the exquisite DT400 throttle.  I was amazed, after about a week of sweaty moments, multiple midnight dips into the manual, and a few choice words at my lack of comprehension, that I could make the engines do things in DCC that they could never do in DC.  Apart from making them lock pilot couplers on the same powered contiguous section of track (impossible in DC), I could dial up to speed step 45 and watch my Niagara begin to pull away from the station under the strain of the heavyweights behind it, and accelerate slowly around the large curve commencing its climb to the upper level.  In DC, I'd have to keep cranking the throttle to get that behaviour.  For diesel lovers, if you want to run two different units together in DC MU'd....well, I don't even want to go there.  In DCC, after some upfront fiddling with speed tables and CV values, your Bachmann This and your Athearn That will work together very nicely pulling the same consist.  No regearing or remotoring.

So, if you haven't gleaned my drift yet, at this point, and if you would like to have an enjoyable and solid run for the foreseeable future in the hobby, it makes sense to avail yourself of all its advancements.  They are marketed because so many people wanted them and were willing to pay for them.  Chances are good that you are in that crowd, but may not appreciate it at this point.

[MisterBeasley]

I've been here on these forums for about 4 years now.  In all that time, I think I've seen one post by someone who was frustrated by DCC, and said he was going back to DC.  But there have been hundreds of DC users who all seemed to have that same almost mystical experience, like coming out of a dark basement into a well-lighted layout room for the first time.

Same 40-year sleep for my trains in the attic, by the way.  I had plans, like many others, of building a DC layout and gradually transitioning over.  I had a small financial windfall and picked up a Lenz DCC system.  Within a couple of hours, I had installed my first decoder, connected up the DCC system and realized that this was the way to go.  I disconnected the old power pack from the tracks for the last time that night.

One phrase that we hear now and then is "With DC, you run the track.  With DCC, you run the trains."  It really is true.  Compared with the complexity and difficulty of a large, block-wired DC layout, DCC is a piece of cake.

[Paul3]

Steve,
I would not go through the effort of wiring a "serious" DC layout if you have future plans of going DCC.  What I did when I built my layout was start with a simple DC set up just to get trains running using a couple old throttlepacks and only a handful of toggles.  I left my engine storage areas unpowered, and basically isolated my yards from the mainline, and that's about it.  The wiring was a 14AWG bus under the mainline with feeders every 9', with seperate busses for the yards.  I used toggles to switch from one area to another, but it was very simple.

When I went to DCC, I ripped out the toggles & throttlepacks, jumped all the busses together, and plugged in my Digitrax Zephyr.  Viola!  I had a DCC layout.

If you do want a "serious" DC layout, try:
http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/12212.html

or:

http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/12207.html

For DCC, try:

http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/12242.html

Paul A. Cutler III
*******************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*******************

[rrinker]

 I said it before - look up the old issues of MR from the 50's and 60's where they talk about section control, progressive cab control, etc etc. All in attempts to make it possible to actually run your train around the layout without a lot of switch flipping. It WAS possble, and there were even automated forms (lots and lots of relays, before Bruce Chubb used a computer to automate the block assignments), but I defy ANYONE who thinks DC is easy and DCC is hard to understand thse schematics for those complex cab control schemes. Or have the patience to wire up all those panels and relays. It may be basically simple, but it's so many circuits you end up with an uncountable number of wires bundled into massive cables if you wire neatly or a huge rat's nest if you don't. The comparison is often made to a simple single cab DC layout, or maybe a dual cab setup using the Atlas wiring components, to DCC - even then, unless you're talking about a relatively small and basic layout, the wiring for DCC is by far simpler.

                                             --Randy

[ARTHILL]

When I started over, I went DC. Only later did I go with Digitrax Super Chief Radio. It was easy and the most fun I have ever had with trains.

 I did not get frustrated until I started to put sound decoders in 1950 and 1960 engines. That is fun also, but rather difficult. I do enjoy the frustration as well. I am currently putting a sound decoder in a 1950's John English Yard Bird. That is frustrating, but I didn't have to do it. It will be satisfying if I succeed.

The current steam engines with sound with DCC radio is how I also thought HO ought to be.

[logicman49]

OK - I get it but what do I do with the old engines I have invested in?  I must have about 15 of them.  And I guess the old turnouts too?  Are they still powered as normal or do they get connected differently with DCC?  It sounds as if it's better to get one new engine to start out with that's DCC and go from there.  I could use bits and pieces from what I have.  Certainly all the structures are good...

[modelmaker51]

There isn't much that a decoder can't be installed in, if you're talking about Athearns, they can all have decoders installed. With track and switches, it kind of depends on what we're talking about. Atlas, Peco, Shinohara will be fine with lttlie or no modifications. If it's old brass track, I would start over with nicklesilver, DCC does require pretty clean track to operate well and as brass tarnishes quickly it needs much more cleaning than the ns.

It would'nt be a bad idea to get a RTR DCC equipped loco to start with and add the decoders to the older stuff as time permits and you've gotten more familiar with DCC.

[selector]

modelmaker51

...It would'nt be a bad idea to get a RTR DCC equipped loco to start with and add the decoders to the older stuff as time permits and you've gotten more familiar with DCC.

This most sensible advice is what I, too, would advocate to you. 

Start off with the "new" standard so that you start correctly if you are willing to get your feet wet at all with DCC.  From that standard of performance, with a modern DCC-equipped locomotive, you will soon learn what you have in store for you as you begin to convert your best bets and most prized engines from the past.  If you have reasonable success, you win, and won't have to spend a lot of money on new engines.  If you lose...well, you can't really lose because you will have forced yourself into a conversion and will know that your older engines are not redeemable, or that only a very few are worth the effort.  The fact is that the older engines are probably worth only what a decoder is today, although you could sell some of them on ebay to recoup some of your original outlay and to help defray the cost of your re-entry to the hobby.

We find that some fellows do quite well if they have the skills and patience, but many find that the older drives are too problematic, and they lose confidence after a while.  They must then begin to repopulate their fleet with modern can motors and drives with a decoder managing them.