I just joined the forum about 30 minutes ago and am hoping for an answer to this question:
It can be done but there is a chance you can smoke a booster. Our club did that.
We built a DC layout in the early 1980's. Fourteen blocks, one reverse loop. The control panel was operated by one man. Four throttles. Homemade throttles good for two amps each. Four operators. You guess it. With talkers, at times, who has my loco?
When we bought a NCE five amp Power Pro years later, we tried running DCC in a block or two and DC in some others. Eventually it bit us.
A few years earlier while some of us gabbing we ran a pricey diesel off a siding not finished off the layout damaging it. Lost a good member.
Probably loose membership standards at the time.
I think some DCC devices will not work under DC control such as DCC reversers and DCC turnouts. Actually anything that requres a signal from the operators DCC controller. There will be DC on the rails.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
auto reverse for DCC will not function correctly under DC , it will have to have one of the input wires disconnected for DC operation
If you can set it up with one 'master switch' so the entire layout is either running on DC or DCC, it's not a problem. Where people mess up is setting it up so it's possible to have one block running DCC and another next to it is running DC. That can lead to problems.
As mentioned, if you use automatic reverse loop gizmos in DCC they won't work in DC, but you can use the old-fashioned DC method of throwing a toggle to reverse polarity in DCC also.
I can switch from DCC to DC on my small layout (although I can't remember the last time I ran it DC), but I have a small layout, and I'm the only operator, a lone wolf. It's only me running trains.
I think as a club layout you should have as Stix and Rich suggest, being able to switch it all one way, or all the other, and NOT try to mix operations.
It will come back and bite you sooner or later. Too many different people and different equipment involved to have major problems like that.
Mike.
My You Tube
I have a DPDT switch on my layout where I can switch between DC and DCC. It MUST be a center off DPDT to work right. However my railroad is wired as one block. If you have multiple blocks/boosters and miss throwing one of the switches the results could be disasterous when a loco bridged the gap. It could fry the decoder or even the dcc system. There is a huge difference in having a home layout that is DCC vs club layout. On most home layouts there is one operator so that really doesn't require DCC as much. The problem is many people project that thought onto a club layout. Once you have DCC on a club layout you wouldn't want block control- done both, there is no comparison everybody has individual control with DCC. I think our club here had some hurdles when it decided to go DCC (long before I came) The main one is someone will not want to as all their locos are DC and they don't want the cost. Perhaps if the club offered to convert one loco with a non-sound decoder for someone that was unable to that would go a long way in keeping the peace. Just a thought- that worked for us.
With a DPDT center off switch, one side feeding DC to the layout, the other side feeding DCC - there's no way you cna fry anything. The two systems do not connect in any way, and either the entire layout is either DC, or DCC, never both. I don't know why anyone would say this won't work.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
One club layout set up for DC and DCC, How's that going to work? Odd days DC, even days DCC. Flip a coin that night of ops? Ok lets have a show of hands for tonight, DC... DCC... the DCs have it, you DCC guys can stay and watch or go home. Whats that burning smell? What was the crunching noise? Opps, who's was that, that should not have been left sitting on the track. What I have seen happen when a club goes totaly DCC, is dues go up, the DCC guys push out alot of the totaly DC guys, membership drops, dues go up. Club picks up new members with DCC equipped locos and the dues stay up. Then some DC guys slowly convert. Go fully DCC and don't look back. Once every month or every three weeks have a DC club member only raffel, one good DCC decoder to be won by DC only members in good standing modelrailroaders, up to two wins perperson allowed. Then a club member should assist the winner on the install and setup at least twice. In the begining I hated DCC, felt like it was being crammed down my throat. But after a few years of a DC/DCC HO layout, I buckled and converted some locos. from DC to DCC. Wow, that was a plus all round. Over the past years I have been pulling out some DCC decoders and installing DCC sound decoders. So now I'm wondering what to do with some of those NOS Atlas #340 & 342 no sound DCC decoders I stock piled? Oh, the raffel prizes would be a nice start.
But it all comes down to tne voteing membership which way it goes.
See the problem is, the DCC guys can run on the DC layout, but the opposite is not true. Only some older DCC decoders did not support running on DC. The will probably not be able to MU a DCC loco with a straight DC one, and ones with DCC sound locos will be rather dissapointed in the performance, but anyone who sees what the same sound loco does when running on DCC will either see how much better it can be, or swear off sound locos for good.
We have plenty of members who are DC only at home, they have one or two locos with decoders that they use at club shows. Or run someone else's. I'm not alone in being paranoid about letting someone else run one of my locos - I don;t have any megabuck brass locos, with the exception of a few sound locos that came factory equipped, most of my locos were $50 and less through careful use of eBay. So if someone else wants to take my train out for a while - go right ahead. There's no way a loco can hit the floor on our layout, there's no place the track somes close enough to the edge for that. So, if you don;t have a DCC loco and want a chance to run a train for a while - here, take my throttle.