Is there a stand alone WI FI DCC hardware peripheral in the market? Can one convert an Loconet (RJ2) plug into an RJ45 broadband using and adapter? If so can one then link Loconet using wireless ethernet bridges or some other form of wireless DCC components?
No you can't just plug a wireless broadband adapter into loconet. You can however plug a PC via an interface such as a PR3 or Locobuffer and then use JMRI decoderpro in ways such as http://www.decoderpro.com/help/en/html/hardware/PDA.shtml
or
https://market.android.com/details?id=jmri.enginedriver&hl=en
There is also a throttle for iPhone
So basically the PC becomes the bridge linking the Loconet to your wireless network.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Not yet but it is on the drawing board.
See the video in this link : http://www.overlooklabs.com/OverLookLabs.com/Welcome.html
Jack W.
Jack, that is really cool, thanks for the link. As a Galaxy Tab owner, I do hope that they come out with an Android version of it. Nothing yet on the Digitrax website regarding the WiFI interface, should open up all kinds of possibilities. I noticed that Digitrax has a new Beta version of their web site up for trial. Looks good.
Honestly, I wish these single system solutions would just go away, or people would stop working on them. They end up being proprietary and locked to one brand of DCC system. The JMRI solution works on iPhones and Android devices, both phones and tablets, and is universal and works with any DCC system (except MRC). The JMRI solution is free except for the cost of the PC interface device for your DCC system, and adds a whole lot of useful things besides the wireless throttle feature. And JMRI has been doing this for a couple of years now.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy, I agree to some extent, but I have to say I really don't especially like the Engine Driver app for the Android, yes I know it is free, and it actually works quite well and is responsive, I just don't care for the implementation. I find that it is really hard to control at the slow speeds because they have placed the control too close to the edge of the display. So even though I already use it, I would be interested in an alternative if it provided a better experience.
Yes, I loaded Android on my HP Touchpad - and quickly switched back. But I tried two things - Angry Birds and Engine Driver. WiThrottle on the iPhone is MUCH nicer, there's a large area to grab on to and slide, it's very resonsive, and up/down is much nicer than left/right for speed control.
That's the beauty of running it through JMRI though - it started out as an iPhone app and then along came Engine Driver for Android using the same API - no reason there can't be more. On a tablet devices there's also the web server in JMRI that gives you access to nearly the whole program.
Since there's already a huge proliferation of duplicate apps (I just added a QR reader to my iphone - and searching the app store for qr reader returned nearly 100 programs that all do essentially the same thing - so the idea that one deivce has "more apps" than another is largely a fallacy cuased by huge numebrs of duplicates), what's a couple more throttle apps? The nice thing is, goign the JMRI route, all teh complictaed stuff it already handled - all you need to really do is design the UI. And working via JMRI opens you up to all DCC systems, building a specialized box that plugs in to NCE, Digitrax, or Lenz limits you to just that system. Hmm, on a tablet-size device you could make the UI look like the physical throttle, although I'm not sure how you could touchscreen turning the knobs on a Digitrax throttle. The NCE scroll whele would be fairly easy to replicate with a touch UI.
Also, on a tablet, I can see scrolling left or right and bringing up your switchlist or waybills. Time for me to get cracking I guess...
Simon,
Have you tried letting the developer know the difficutly your having with Engine Driver.
Maybe it's something Steve can work on to improve the program. He is always making updates so who knows.
Peter
Thanks Peter, I did just that and already have a very nice response from Steve. Seems like he has experienced some of the issues I have and is already making plans to improve things. There is a version 2 beta available for trial which I plan to do also.