Gentlemen, I am new to this forum as I was recommeded here from another forum. This person suggested I post here because he thought there was more expertise here to answer my questions. So here is what has developed on the other site:
What if I own a MRC Advance2 system and want to get feedback from the stationary accessories? I think it might be possible to connect a secondary booster to the Advance2 master system to power the accessories, keeping their power seperate from the track, and use a booster from another manufacturer, say, Digitrax, and power all accessories with that booster. Now I have heard and even read a tech report on Tony'sTrains on how to connect a booster from one company to another's system. Commands from the MRC cab would pass through to the accessories, but of course MRC has no feedback from these accessorie decoders and also is not compatible with JMRI software, so would it be possible to connect a USB connection to this secondary booster and get the feedback from the accessory decoders into a conputer so it can run the Panel Pro and see all accessory decoders? And still run the railroad from the MRC Prodigy Advance2 cab? Does anyone out there have any experience with this kind of a setup? Does anyone know if this will work, or has seen a setup like this? Or does anyone out there own the parts to conduct an experiment?
Thanks in advance for any help in this complicated matter,
Russell
Russell Kingery
Modeling Norfolk Southern and CSX in Virginia - N scale
I know that you can use a separate booster to power your accessory decoders without a problem.
But I believe that the ability to communicate with a computer and JMRI rests with the command station. There is no connection on the booster to which the computer can connect. So if the command staion won't communicate with JMRI, you are out of luck.
However, I think there may be a workaround. What you would need to do would be to create a separate loconet. There is a company called RR-Circuits (http://rr-cirkits.com/). They have some descriptive information on their website describing how to do this. This separate loconet will allow connection to a computer and JMRI. I know others have done a similar thing, and I am interested in possibly doing the same with my NCE system, but I haven't progressed that far yet.
Unless you use the command station, you will need another command bus to talk to a computer. Simply connecting another brand of booster to your MRC command station will not get you the benfits of the network built into the foreign booster. You just get the booster's output.
This will probably start a flame war but what the heck. What you want to do is quite frankly available with other systems like Digitrax, NCE, Lenz, Zimo. You could even mix items and some DIY stuff to work with them. Fact is MRC won't interface with anything but MRC products. You might be able to get a foreign booster to add power, but there would be no feed back.
Martin Myers
What you need to do is gain a more extensive understanding how the different manufactures products work. There are loads of DCC sites on the 'Net.
I belong to some Yahoo DCC Groups, one is the Yahoo MRC group, along with the NCE, SoundTraxx, LokSound and a couple other DCC Groups.
MRC wants to stand by itself the last I heard. This "might" change in the future.
There is NO one size fits all in DCC. You need more DCC knowledge to enjoy this particular part of model railroading.
I spend a lot of time searching the 'Net so I can enjoys this aspect of model railroading. You can to.
DCC is quite new compared to DC and evolving.
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.
What maxman describes is EXACTLY how you do it, if you are happy witht he train control capabilities of your MRC system and don't wish to change. You could also use Bruce Chubb's C/MRI as the second control system, but Loconet implementation will be less expensive and there are a greater variety of accessories available for it. You can do signallign and detection and turnout control and not use a single Digitrax product as devices for all this are available from RR Cir-Kits, Team Digital, CML, and others in addition to Digitrax's own products.
You would not need a second booster. The Loconet-based accessory controlelrs and so forth can take their commands via the loconet. The usually will require a power supply, plain AC or DC, when operating this way. If you still want to control turnouts from the MRC throttle, then you would probably want an accessory booster - but you only need a simple one such as the one sold by Tam Valley, inexpensive and not very fancy, and I wouldn't use it to run trains but for accessories it's quite adequate, and what it's designed for. Since there's no communication between MRC and the JMRI program, you'd need contacts on each switch machine that feeds back into Loconet devices so the indictions on your JMRI panels would match the actual switch position.
About the only thing you would not be able to do is actually control trains from JMRI, since there is no interface for MRC.
This is actually quite common, a lot of NCE layouts use a Loconet for signalling and detection. NCE does have some feedback capability in their cab bus but it's limited compared to Loconet. So while the preference may be for NCE's cabs to run trains, a Loconet is added to implement the signalling. The club I used to belong to is doing just that. The advantage with NCE as the controlling system is that you actually CAN control the trains from JMRI as well. JMRI supports having more than one computer interface, so you'd have a Locobuffer for the signal system and one of the NCE interfaces for the train control. Both can be active at the same time.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
maxman However, I think there may be a workaround. What you would need to do would be to create a separate loconet. There is a company called RR-Circuits (http://rr-cirkits.com/). They have some descriptive information on their website describing how to do this. This separate loconet will allow connection to a computer and JMRI. I know others have done a similar thing, and I am interested in possibly doing the same with my NCE system, but I haven't progressed that far yet.
Yup, maxman is exactly right: Set up a stand-alone LocoNet.
It's not hard to set up. I do it occasionally with my Digitrax PR3 to program DS64's, etc. before they are added to the layout.
Just remember, though, for the stand-alone LocoNet to be of any use, all the devices you want to receive feedback from must of course be LocoNet-capable devices. And you'd have to run a physical LocoNet bus around the layout to connect those devices.
Also, since MRC does not interface with JMRI (or as far as I know, with any other layout-control software), there's no way to pass commands from, or feedback to, the MRC system. In other words, your stand-alone LocoNet/computer will need to be entirely self-sufficient. As a contrast, JMRI can "talk to" both maxman's NCE system and a stand-alone LocoNet, and can coordinate events between them.
If it were me, and considering all the limitations, considerations, and possible bus duplication, I'd just ditch the MRC system and go all Digitrax (Which is what I did anyway. Couldn't be happier.).
Thanks Gentlemen, you have been a huge help. The other group I was refering to was DCCMRC from Yahoo, so in the conversations I had there everyone was all for getting the MRC system and worrying about the feedback system later, it would work itself out. Well from what you tell me it very well could! I will be sure to relay what I have learned here back to them, I am sure that some of those MRC owners would be very interested to hear what has been said here, but the fact is I haven't bought anything yet. So as much as I love the MRC throttle I am just going to have to live without it and go with NCE or Digitrax. I think if I could run PanelPro and DecoderPro I would be happy with my system. Having read DCC Projects and Applications, it explains that since DCC has developed this feedback from the track power it is considered Generation 3, and it would seem that MRC is stuck at Generation 2, if it only supported feedback and played ball with JMRI it would be one heck of a system, but unfortunitly it just doesn't. I have read I know 90% of everything on the web about DCC, but I never really understood it until I started to use these group chats, you just can't believe everything you read from biased sources, talking to the experienced is the only way to learn! So thank you gentlemen, you have saved me from making a serious mistake and wasting good money. I am sure once I do select a system and get it up and running I will be full of questions!
Beginning right now, what about the newest MRC decoders? I saw a new MRC drop in for my Atlas N Scale that had a 10mm speaker built right on the board, and it supported read, and 28 functions, a very complete decoder, but I have heard that some have problems with MRC decoders, does that include the newest ones? Should I shy away from this new MRC decoder? Or is there an alternative out there with all of these features? Thank you sirs, You have been the biggest help!