I'm wondering how others handle assigning "B" units a number with DCC. For instance, I have Athearn GP9 UP #203 and #203B. Since the "B" isn't available to use, has anyone come up with an easy and consitant substitute. I've thought of replacing the "B" with just a "1" or a "2", but that could conflict with a road number somewhere in the future. Anyone come up with a different approach that's easy to remember?
I'm wondering if it makes sense if the two are going to always be in a "Consist" with each other to simply assign them the same 3 digit road number. Thoughts?
Deane JohnsonI'm wondering if it makes sense if the two are going to always be in a "Consist" with each other to simply assign them the same 3 digit road number.
It did to me.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I have an A and B unit that are always together. I gave them the same number.
The issue I had was the units were the same manufacturer, but different decoders. I had to separately program the speeds, acceleration, and deceleration. It helped me with a double mainline. When I thought I had them close, I would place both locomotives on the track and run them to see how things matched.
Once programed separately, they now run almost perfectly with just one address number.
My B unit does not have headlights, etc., so there is not a problem with them not being a consist.
York1 John
York1The issue I had was the units were the same manufacturer, but different decoders. I had to separately program the speeds, acceleration, and deceleration.
It may be a wise idea to do this even for 'identical' products, as there may be performance differences even 'from the factory' in how the engines respond.
It helped me with a double mainline.
For the price of a few pieces of straight track and some wood, cork, and wire, you could build parallel 'program tracks' of suitable length to give fairly precise results.
An alternative to the road-number issue might be to do what prototype roads did: reserve certain number ranges or codes for 'special' circumstances (assuming your consist programming permits the relevant syntax). New Haven distinguished its electrics (and later its early diesels) by prefixing a zero on the road number; PRR distinguished special power (and I believe some other roads designated power due to be scrapped but still 'rostered') by applying a five-digit number prefixing the old road number with "9" -- in your case, to keep the 92xx series open you might use 90203 for 203B)
(Can you use hex numbers to program consists?)
OvermodNew Haven distinguished its electrics (and later its early diesels) by prefixing a zero on the road number;
That won't really work on my NCE system (and maybe others.) NCE uses leading zeros as placeholders for locos assigned to long addresses lower than 128. Zero itself can be used as an address. In those cases, you need enough leading zeroes to come up with a 4-digit number. For short addresses (limited to 1 to 127), you can't use leading zeros.
NCE specifically warns against using the same number, one as a short address and one as a leading zero-enabled long 4-digit address, on two different units, noting this could lead to "unpredictable results." So the leading zero could be an issue there if the A unit were, for example, 100, and the B unit, 0100. Not sure about the nature of "unpredicatble" but just be aware that the leading zero may cause issues.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
The 0 lead on a B unit number is an interesting idea and concept. My system is MRC. I will give it a try in the next couple of days and see what happens and if the system will even accept it. The thing I like about it is the ease of remembering. When one gets into their mid-80's as I have, remembering becomes part of the criteriea. Now, I wonder where I parked that B unit.
I also use the same DCC address for AB & ABB configurations with the lead A address. I use a drawbar between locomotives. I also have a MRC Prodigy system. I only turn on the horn in the lead A and program the headlight on in both forward and reverse.
I use the Southern Pacific road numbers on the shells.
Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Hello All,
I run the Bachmann Dynamis DCC system.
Most of my programming is done with Decoder Pro from my Mac through a Digitrax PR3 to a separate programming track. I do have a programming track built into the pike from the command station.
In my motive fleet I have a GP30-B consisted with two GP30s, a TR Cow & Calf (NW2s), along with a F7-B in my snow plow train and two more F7-Bs in the Royal Gorge train.
My numbering protocol is...
If the unit has a 4-digit address the B-unit is numbered in sequence. For the GP30s the two A-units are 3001 & 3002 respectively while the B-unit is 3005 (for no apparent reason).
For the TR Cow & Calf they are sequentially numbered 2418 & 2419.
If the unit has a 2- or 3-digit address I will still use the 4-digit address while programming.
For the A-units the 2- or 3-digit address will be followed by one or two 0s (zero). The B-units will end in a 1 (one).
For the Royal Gorge consist the lead A-unit is numbered is 402 (digital address 4020). The matching B-unit is 402-B (digital address 4021).
When entering the name of the loco in the DCC system I list what type it is; "GP30-B", "TR Cow", etc.
The actual number of the consist is the first two digits.
Luckily none of my consists have the same two initial numbers. The consist of 4 GP40s is 35 because all the engines are in the 3500 series.
This system works well for me but might not for others.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Running some brief initial tests, it appears that MRC will not take 0 as the leading number. I use the word "appears" because my experience has shown me that sometimes I just need to do something in a different order, or do some deleting and erasing before trying something new.
You have gotten a few good responses, but one that seems to have been overlooks is to just renumber one of the units. Did UP always keep the B-units with their matched A or non-B unit? Could 203B be mated to 211(a)? If that works, then just renumber one of the units and its decoder. Problem solved.
Another simple solution is to us one address as the 3 number address - 203 and set the second one up as a 4 digit address 2032 with the 2 substituting for the 'B'. A= 1 B=2 C=3 etc.... Both are long addresses so no issue creating a consist.
On my roster I have 85A and 85B. They have DCC addresses of 851 and 852.
Lots of solutions to choose from.
Scott Sonntag
Scott, that's one of the approaches I'm thinking of using, the other is simply to add a 0 to the 203 making it 2030. I haven't yet settled on which.
I am seeking something I can remember easily. Either of these approaches would accomplish that, but I need to use it with everything so it's second nature to grab for it. I believe I have a set of CB&Q FT units that are A, B,C and D. In that case, the 2,3, and 4 approach might be the system to use.
This thread discussion has been very useful for me, I hope it might serve to help someone else in the process. I appreciate the responses.
Keep in mind that whatever you pick can't conflict with a different road number. The problem with using 203 and then a code digit is that it may rule out having any engines in the 203x series, including guests.
An alternative is to use a longer prefix on the number. A common old trick in the pre-Y2K era, when fields might be listed numerically and keeping absolute size to a minimum, was to use 999 as a 'catchall' for anything that couldn't fit into a more specific box, even if you routinely used numbers in the high 900s for other purposes. For railroaders this has an additional memory advantage, and modern decoder architecture doesn't have a problem with multiple places. So a multiple-engine code might involve prefixing "999" to the road number of anything that has extra 'coding' present, and then use the one additional digit unambiguously if you have, say, a four-unit FT set with the 'same' road number in the mid-Forties.
For your example, with only 203B, the regular head-end would be code 203 and the B-unit 999203. If you had more of a set, you could use 9992032 for 203B (using the code where a letter is given its numerical place in the alphabet) and so on.
My multiple unit sets using DCC all have the same address.
My multiple unit sets using RailPro, road numbers are irrelevant. And so is speed matching.