I finally decided to try running a DC engine on my Zephyr-based DCC layout using Loco #00. Everything works just fine (including the whine) except for one idiosyncracy--forward is reverse and reverse is forward. The direction is correct for all of my DCC-based locomotives, and I am not smart enough to have changed the direction in the decoders. (All of the decoders are straight-out-of-the-box TCS decoders.) I am currently making the mental conversion when I run the DC locomotive, but am wondering if I missed something. I am assuming if I invert the wires to the layout, the DCC locomotives' direction would then be wrong.
Richard
For the DCC decoder-equipped locomotivs, the direction is based on which way the locomotive is set up. In other words, forward is always going to be forward on that locomotive regardless of which way it is facing on the layout or the polarity going to the track. This is the reason why you can run a DCC locomotive through a return loop with an autoreverse unit and the locomotive will still continue to go forward without the operator having to throw a reversing switch on the throttle.
DC is where this changes. DC (or Analog) on DCC will still be dependent on the polarity of the power going to the track, and going through a reverse loop will require you to throw the reverse switch on the throttle.
Clear as mud, I hope!
Robert Beaty
The Laughing Hippie
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The CF-7...a waste of a perfectly good F-unit!
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the
end of your tunnel, Was just a freight train coming
your way. -Metallica, No Leaf Clover
So I should be able to invert the connection without an effect on my DCC locomotives. Excellent, I will give it a try. Thanks!
Wahoo! It worked! Thanks again.