PC control for track plan

[Boomer1961]

New at this, can a PC be used to control track plan functions, in addition with a DCC system?

[Lake]

To add to Davids post: "Anything is possible."  'with enough money.'

[Boomer1961]

Anything is possible with money; as you know, this hobby generates both endless possibilities and the requirement of money all for the experience of enjoyment and frustration! What I am looking for is any information on PC programs that incorporates Digital DCC and basic control of lighting, and other possible controls and functions.

[claymore1977]

There's a few options out there, but the current 'hot' product is JMRI:

http://jmri.sourceforge.net/

Check it out, but be ready to pay some serious $ for a fully PC controlled DCC Layout :)

[NP01]

Boomer,

I recently did this for my digitrax dcc layout. happy to share the architecture and components if you want. What dcc system you have?

NP

[Boomer1961]

I think it is Digitrax, it is still in the box, I took down my first table top venture, now I am ready to do this the right way with time, patience and research, any help directions or advice would be a big help. I have a 10x11 room and the theme is lumber, coal, gypsum and passenger at the transition from stem to diesel. I am running code 83, 55 and N scale for the interior coal mine.

Thanks for the positive reply.     

[NP01]

Hi Boomer, my set up is as follows:

Digitrax Zephyr Extra connects through Loconet cables to a Digitrax PR3 ($80) which connects to the PC thru USB cable. Follow driver instructions exactly as it involves creation of a virtual serial port.  Then I downloaded JMRI. This should allow you to immediately drive trains from the PC.  You have to tell JMRI what system you have on what port. You will find that buying a 6p/6c cable, connectors and crimper ($30 total at allelectronics.com) will help a lot- although 25' cables we're available at my hardware store. 

Next step, I purchased and wired a SE8C ($110) to the Loconet, and it controls 8 turnouts. You can draw a panel on JMRI to represent your track plan, and throw turnouts from the PC. Download the WiThrottle app ($10) for iPhone, Android or iPad and you can drive and throw turnouts from your phone. That was cool. 

Next step, I purchased a BDL168 ($125) "block occupancy detector" and started feeding track through it. It has 16 detection sections, so far I have only wired 5. On your panel now you can set up icons, tied to sensor number on the BDL168, which glow yellow when a train is in the section!

Next step: you take the signal driver outputs of the SE8C and attach a signal to it (one test signal comes with the SE8C). You can go back to your panel, add a signal (make sure to configure the SE8C with 4-aspect color light with 4-th aspect DARK) to your track plan and you can click the signal to change its aspects. Cool ha?

Next Step: You create within JMRI what is called a Logix. The logix (tutorials on JMRI website) takes in if-then conditions such as block occupied or not and turnout thrown or closed and can drive signals. This took some thinking and trial and error, but once you get it it's actually very elegant. I have 4 signals like this on my layout. I have lost the will to wire for a while, because if you have followed the story so far it requires a LOT of wiring. 

Hope this ge helps? I needed to research on alternative ways of doing this for a very long time, maybe 3 months so I thought a step by step would help you. 

NP. 

[rrinker]

 If you are talking about actually automating the movement of trains - not just the signals and turnouts, such that someone with a throttle will follow signals that automatically change based on turnut psosition and track occupancy, consider also RR&CO software. It's not free like JMRI, but setting up script to automatically run trains is much much easier. You cna try it for free, but to keep it running requires purcahse. It will work with a PR3 or Locobuffer to interface to a Digitrax system, or other interfaces for other systems (no MRC, same as JMRI).

 I worked for a while trying to set upa  simple automated trolley loop on a friend's alyout with JMRI, 16 blocks with a BDL16 (yes, the older one, not a BDL168) and a couple of issues came up, first being that if a mistake was made n setting up the blocks, you had to start over, or else manually edit the XML file. Second being that just getting one trolley to run around the loop just wouldn;t work right, sometimes it would start up, other times it would just sit there, or else lose track fo the train. Friend picked up a copy or RR&CO Silver, I think, the mid product - there are three levels, gold, silver, and bronze which have different feature sets - and next time I went to visit he had the loop running with 4 sets fo trolleys, each peridically stopping so not to run into the one ahead. For three hours they just kept orbiting the loop, never a problem. And i'm the computer guy - he's a lawyer, not computer illiterate, but more a computer user in the sense of it being a tool than someone like me who actually works on computers for a living. So for automated control of the trains, give RR&CO a try. For signals and a dispatcher type setup - I've had good luck with JMRI.

                      --Randy