Way back in the days I built a railroad with my dad and we did a classic layout from one of the Atlas books, complete with the blocks and the standard wiring, etc. straight out of the book. I get that. But, what about DCC? I loosely understand the concept, but now that I've finally got a place to build a layout, I want to be able to plan the layout around DCC and not use the old school wiring techniques. Does anyone know of any good article on mr.com or anywhere else that will give me a primer for the basics?
Thanks...
never mind, I looked through the forums and found some stuff...
With the advent of DCC the old school wiring techniques went out the window. My layout is set up in blocks because it was originally built for use with DC. With DC blocking you're not running the trains, you're running the track. You turn on the power where you want the trains to run, you turn off the power where you want the trains to stop. With DCC the blocking is not needed because you're running the trains, not the track. Each decoder equipped loco has it's own address which can be accessed from the controller. This way each loco can be controlled independently from each other, even run in opposite directions on the same track, even in the same block if you have them. Try that with DC. I keep all the mainline blocks of my layout turned on but I turn off the blocks for the spurs. These I use to 'park' locos that aren't being used.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
In this case, Google is your best friend. There are literally tons of information that you could spend days looking at.
Will