The Bluerail app and Bachmann's EZ app are basically the same app.
RE: I downloaded the BlueRail app...
Did you download the "BlueRail app" to run a BlueRail plugin board? Or did you use the "BlueRail app" to run a Bachmann E-Z app loco? Or did you use the "Bachmann E-Z app" to run something? I'm not clear people are delineating between these different products.
No, a plug-n-play decoder with switch, battery, limit controls for battery charging etc. Before if you did not know what you were doing you could have things go south, very fast. Before, you could put it all together, first you would have to fiqure out which battery and then the stuff that went with it along with good souldering skills, and that was the easy part. Next you would have to decide which decoder to use with only a cryptic idea as they were ment for RC cars, wire it all up with switches and stuff. Maybe easy for you but I would rather wire or plum a house anyday.
So you are calling Bluerail the "first" because they will sell a battery. OK.
We look forward to photos of your installation.
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rrinker cuyama rrebell Where BlueRail shines is in dead rail applications with the first solution that is not home grown. Not correct. There are complete dead rail systems that predate Bluerail by years, such as Ring Engineering's RailPro and others. Most of these are based on custom purpose-built hardare modules in the loco which are significantly smaller than Bluerail's off-the-shelf OEM hardware. That means that their receivers (and currently available batteries) fit in a larger variety of locos than do Bluerail's. Exactly - I highly doubt Ring uses a homebrew RF module in their throttles and receivers. The sheer cost of certifiaction for such things pretty much precludes a low volume model railroad manufacturer from doing this sort of thing. Even the Digitrax radio throttles, going back to the older UR91 simplex throttles, use a commercial RF module for the radio part of the throttle, not somethign they built and designed themselves. The DRS from Tam Valley likewise uses a standard RF module at each end, coupled to a custom board, in their case that conencts to a standard DCC decoder. Bluerail is no different, they have no throttle side since it uses an existing smartphone, but the receiver boards use commercial BT receivers that interface to their custom part of the hardware that actually drives the motor. --Randy
cuyama rrebell Where BlueRail shines is in dead rail applications with the first solution that is not home grown. Not correct. There are complete dead rail systems that predate Bluerail by years, such as Ring Engineering's RailPro and others. Most of these are based on custom purpose-built hardare modules in the loco which are significantly smaller than Bluerail's off-the-shelf OEM hardware. That means that their receivers (and currently available batteries) fit in a larger variety of locos than do Bluerail's.
rrebell Where BlueRail shines is in dead rail applications with the first solution that is not home grown.
Not correct. There are complete dead rail systems that predate Bluerail by years, such as Ring Engineering's RailPro and others.
Most of these are based on custom purpose-built hardare modules in the loco which are significantly smaller than Bluerail's off-the-shelf OEM hardware. That means that their receivers (and currently available batteries) fit in a larger variety of locos than do Bluerail's.
Exactly - I highly doubt Ring uses a homebrew RF module in their throttles and receivers. The sheer cost of certifiaction for such things pretty much precludes a low volume model railroad manufacturer from doing this sort of thing. Even the Digitrax radio throttles, going back to the older UR91 simplex throttles, use a commercial RF module for the radio part of the throttle, not somethign they built and designed themselves. The DRS from Tam Valley likewise uses a standard RF module at each end, coupled to a custom board, in their case that conencts to a standard DCC decoder. Bluerail is no different, they have no throttle side since it uses an existing smartphone, but the receiver boards use commercial BT receivers that interface to their custom part of the hardware that actually drives the motor.
--Randy
cuyama jalajoie So far I only have one loco with DCC keep alive a Bachmann 2-6-0 with a TCS decoder. The difference is the TCS will provide power for a brief period while with the battery it is much longer. An example, at the club I was doing scenery and had 6 feet of each rail masked with tape. If you regularly operate over long stretches of masking tape or unpowered track, I could see the need for battery vs. the standard DCC keep-alive products.
jalajoie So far I only have one loco with DCC keep alive a Bachmann 2-6-0 with a TCS decoder. The difference is the TCS will provide power for a brief period while with the battery it is much longer. An example, at the club I was doing scenery and had 6 feet of each rail masked with tape.
If you regularly operate over long stretches of masking tape or unpowered track, I could see the need for battery vs. the standard DCC keep-alive products.
Good reply I love it
Jack W.
jalajoieSo far I only have one loco with DCC keep alive a Bachmann 2-6-0 with a TCS decoder. The difference is the TCS will provide power for a brief period while with the battery it is much longer. An example, at the club I was doing scenery and had 6 feet of each rail masked with tape.
If you regularly operate over long stretches of masking tape or unpowered track, I could see the need for battery vs. the standard DCC keep-alive products. Edit: You're probably aware of the DCC-based Dead Rail products like CVP's Airwire and CONVRTR.
jalajoie I think the keep alive feature has great potential.
a keep-alive may be essential for any system using bluetooth.
I believe it takes 1+ sec to establish a bluetooth connection. If the bluetooth receiver loses power because of dirty track, it may take 1+ second to re-establish communication. Therefore preventing loss of power is essential for decent performance in such an environment.
A pico-processor implementing DCC can reboot far faster.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
cuyama jalajoie Just curious, since you said that you are primarily running DCC and because there are keep-alive solutions in DCC decoders that work well, what do you find superior in the Bluerail keep-alive implementation?
jalajoie
Just curious, since you said that you are primarily running DCC and because there are keep-alive solutions in DCC decoders that work well, what do you find superior in the Bluerail keep-alive implementation?
So far I only have one loco with DCC keep alive a Bachmann 2-6-0 with a TCS decoder. The difference is the TCS will provide power for a brief period while with the battery it is much longer. An example, at the club I was doing scenery and had 6 feet of each rail masked with tape. My E6 equiped with an ordinary 9v battery traveled the whole length of this track without any hesitation. I doubt the TCS would do as well. I am on the hunt for a very small 6 to 9 v battery that I could fit in a hood unit, does it exist I don't know but I love trying new things.
DCC is only a protocol.
How you interface to it depends on what you or your DCC system's designer decided to do.
There is nothing stopping someone from getting a licence from Digitrax for Loconet development and making their own throttle with a touch interface and nice cute icons, using bluetooth to connect to a Loconet interface. Nothing really.
In fact the DCC protocol won't prevent you either. The Europeans are already doing it.
Saying something is going to replace DCC because the interface is so ancient is like saying that something will replace the world wide web because IE isn't all that great.
Bucksco It would be interesting to know how many of the folks posting on this topic have actually used the Bluetooth APP. Just as an FYI - The Bluetooth equipped locos can run on a DCC layout at the same time that the DCC locos are being controlled. In other words you don't have to change anything on your layout or purchase anything other than a Bluetooth equipped loco (and own a smart device) to give it a try.
It would be interesting to know how many of the folks posting on this topic have actually used the Bluetooth APP. Just as an FYI - The Bluetooth equipped locos can run on a DCC layout at the same time that the DCC locos are being controlled. In other words you don't have to change anything on your layout or purchase anything other than a Bluetooth equipped loco (and own a smart device) to give it a try.
I did a rather crude installation in a P2K E6 A and B to test dead rail and keep alive. The battery was installed in the B unit and the board in the A. I had to remove the shell as the board will not fit with the shell installed. I am using a Digitrax layout with an Android app., I think the keep alive feature has great potential.
By the way I am 76 (almost 77), went to DCC in 1999 and own both Digitrax and NCE systems, 65 of my 85 locos are decoder equiped. I am too much invested in both Digitrax and NCE hardware to consider ever leaving DCC.
BuckscoIt would be interesting to know how many of the folks posting on this topic have actually used the Bluetooth APP
I have tried the Bluerail App on a friend's HO layout. I personally found it fairly clumsy compared to purpose-built throttles, but I only used it for 10-15 minutes.
The hardware won't fit in my own N scale equipment.
Edit: But it's probably only fair to note that I don't care for the JMRI/WiFi/DCC/Smartphone throttle either.
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrebell I remember the first DCC debates and their predicessors. I remember Zero 1 and Dynatrol and etc. You know, there are still people using most of these. The real first contender to disrupt regular DC was DCC, which would have except the first systems were not great, 20 years later this is not the case (for most). Five to seven years ago, all but the most basic decoders were expencive, like over $50, that has changed.
I remember the first DCC debates and their predicessors. I remember Zero 1 and Dynatrol and etc. You know, there are still people using most of these. The real first contender to disrupt regular DC was DCC, which would have except the first systems were not great, 20 years later this is not the case (for most). Five to seven years ago, all but the most basic decoders were expencive, like over $50, that has changed.
In those early days, I was a big proponent of CVP's Railcommand as the basis for a standard - at the time, it did more than the proposed DCC standard. We owe a lot to some of the early DCC manufacturers for pushing the standard beyond the basic Lenz system - AJ at Digitrax was one of the big drivers for 128 speed steps (the original Lenz concept was 14! The proponents were all like "real locos only have 8 notches" yes, but they also have this thing called momentum which makes a more infinitely variable control unecessary - though Baldwin switchers did not have a stepped control like EMD and Alco). MRC, love 'em or hate 'em, are the ones who pushed the functions to 29.
It's been a lot longer than 5-7 years that decoders have been under $50, I've had my DCC system for nearly 14 years now and was using $11.99 NCE D13SRJ's in a lot of my locos to get them DCC equipped for a budget. Do not be fooled by the likes of Bachmann who did (and still do - check their web site for online ordering ar full MSRP) sell a very basic motor only decoder for $50 even recently - a decoder with less features than the $12 NCE one from 13 years ago. Only in the very early days of DCC were the basic decoders from everyone in the $50 range. That changed rather quickly as DCC adoption sped up, each new decoder release did more and dropped in price.
rrebellWhere BlueRail shines is in dead rail applications with the first solution that is not home grown.
Most of these are based on custom purpose-built hardware modules in the loco which are significantly smaller than Bluerail's off-the-shelf OEM hardware. That means that their receivers (and currently available batteries) fit in a larger variety of locos than do Bluerail's.
See there's the thing, a smartphone IS a control option withotu changing all the rest of the underlying infrastructure. And has been since BEFORE the Bluerail product was announced. It was an option (at least with Digitrax) long before Apple made a smartphone even. Digitax had an option for a Palm PDA that had a throttle knob so you could run trains using the PDA, though in this case it was as a wired device. I was able to run trains with my first iPhone, which was the 3G model (the first ones actually did LESS than the Palm Treo I was using), more than 7 years ago.
Bluerail is not dead rail, so the only 'new' thing it brings is that the communications medium is the Bluetooth radio rather than the 802.11 wifi radio. 6 of one, half dozen of another. You still need the track to be powered. You still have to manage reverse loops.
There ARE true dead rail systems that run off onboard batteries. Yes they work, in HO and larger. I doubt any of them are terribly effective on N scale yet, let alone Z. The big guys with G scale have been doing this too for YEARS, with direct radio control to the loco with battery power. At least one of these dead rail systems works with existing DCC, though it sends the signal via RF< not in the rail, so you need not run any wires to the track. Despite battery advances, for nearly unlimited running you still need a way to keep the batteries charged up, they can't accomodate marathon operating sessions - at least not yet. Maybe in 5 years, 10 years. The ideal is to include the battery charging circuitry on board, which may barely fit in HO, certainly not N scale, and power the 'easy' parts of the track - skip reverse loops and any complex turnout groupings, just power the easy plain straight and curved areas, so the battery can recharge as you run, but you also eliminate the complexities of wiring reverse loops by just not powering them at all. This is available NOW, has been since before Blue Rail.
Is there anything inherently wrong with Blue Rail? No But at present it is a half baked product that doesn't do what the alternatives already do. DCC hasn't replaced DC, and the idea that Blue Rail will replace DCC is laughable at best.
passenger1955Is it unusual for a train control system to be introduced and for debates like this to crop up?
No. It still goes on all the time in this forum and others, unfortunately.
passenger1955I'm trying to understand if the idea of Bluetooth control is particularly disruptive
Not really. MTH's proprietary control system DCS still gets the same treatment here every few months.
But Bluerail's fans are especially enthusiastic and have lots of time on their hands to post over and over and over. (Especially the ones who have never actually used the stuff themselves and are thus free of any real-world constraints.)
The biggest issue for me personally is that so much misinformation is being posted in this forum as if it were fact. When one is unbound by present-day reality, all things seem equally possible.
But for the actual developers and users, hardware and underlying technology constraints are real and challenging -- and unfortunately for them won't be solved with a flurry of app releases.
passenger1955 Is it unusual for a train control system to be introduced and for debates like this to crop up? I'm trying to understand if the idea of Bluetooth control is particularly disruptive, or if discussions of this nature are just par for the course. I imagine other players like MTH and TMCC were around in the 90's and so escaped such a focus of controversy. I have only been paying attention for the last 5-6 years, so I don't have a good historic frame of reference.
Is it unusual for a train control system to be introduced and for debates like this to crop up? I'm trying to understand if the idea of Bluetooth control is particularly disruptive, or if discussions of this nature are just par for the course. I imagine other players like MTH and TMCC were around in the 90's and so escaped such a focus of controversy. I have only been paying attention for the last 5-6 years, so I don't have a good historic frame of reference.
How to control the trains has always been a topic of debate, even back before DCC or any kind of command control. Back then the debate was about the best kinds of DC "cab control" wiring schemes, but those debates happened in person because that was long before the interweb.......
Also, both the products you mentioned are O gauge systems by original design, were modelers are more receptive to the idea of proprietary systems.
HO was built on the idea that every brand of loco will run on every layout, so the relatively new idea of command control has thrown a wrench in that thinking somewhat.
Most DCC decoders allow locos to run on DC layouts - in most, but not all cases, but performance is often compromised.
I for one would not be in this hobby if I had to buy all my locos from one manufacturer because of proprietary controls like LIONEL or MTH.
Sheldon
I will say this, and I have said it before in previous threads.
I like the idea of direct radio and do think it is the future of command control in general.
With DCC protocols, without them, with batteries or with rail power, it seems like a better approach, just the loco reciever/decoder and the wireless throttle, and simple straight power on the rails for power, or to charge batteries, light cars, etc.
And, a big part of my thinking on this goes to the fact that i have never seen the real point to DCC, or any command control system without having wireless throttles.
I never liked any walk around system I ever used that had teathered throttles, DCC or DC. So if you are going to be at a control panel, then multi train operation can be accomplished without command control rather easily.
Another thought many will likely disagree with - I have no need, desire or interest of any kind in running more than one train at a time with one throttle in my hand.
One train, one operator where I come from. OR, on my layout, for dispaly purposes, seperate display loop routes "hidden" in the track plan.
But thinking that any such system will replace DCC is just sillyness....
What we have here, at this point, is apples to oranges. BlueRail is not trying to eleminate DCC at this point, in that respect it is just another option. Where BlueRail shines is in dead rail applications with the first solution that is not home grown. To answer the question on "will it fit diesels", depends on the unit. It will not (at this time) fit narrow hood units. It will fit alot of other ones depending on if they have room not taken up by weight like in the NW2's by Kato, but if you can get a decoder in (which has been done), I can beleive someone will do it. Any experts here on tractive force vs weight? With our free wheeling cars these days, just as in the real trains, the tractive force is not near what was once required.
A friend of mine in The Netherlands is using a home-made bluetooth device to control his battery driven loco, which is designed to run on 7.4 Volts using two 3.7 Volt batteries.
He is modeling in 1/35 scale.
tstage Since I still haven't received an answer to any of my questions, I'll ask yet a 3rd time: Can both a rechargable battery and a BlueRail board reasonably be expected to fit under the hood of an HO- or N-scale diesel locomotive? How easy or convenient is it going to be to recharge the batteries? The price for rechargeable cell phone batteries is usually $20 and up and has been for years. So, what I save using a smartphone as a throttle gets eaten up (and then some) in the purchase of batteries for each of my locomotives? Tom
Since I still haven't received an answer to any of my questions, I'll ask yet a 3rd time:
Tom
Sir Madog Tom, you know the answers, don´t you? One more point which tends to be forgotten is that our trains need 14 - 16 Volts to operate, not the 3.7 Volts most "smart" devices run on. The battery will not really be small nor cheap. But what do we know, we are just a bunch of ignorant old people turning our back on new technologies!
Tom,
you know the answers, don´t you?
One more point which tends to be forgotten is that our trains need 14 - 16 Volts to operate, not the 3.7 Volts most "smart" devices run on. The battery will not really be small nor cheap.
But what do we know, we are just a bunch of ignorant old people turning our back on new technologies!
I bought a board to test dead rail and keep alive capabilities, I can tell you it will run at full throttle on 11 volts and it even worked on an ordinary 9 v. battery.
rrinker Choops 43 Nothing wrong with a model T. It's feul mileage is a poor reason to use to avoid new technologly. Steve Ok then something more recent - we had cars 10-15 years ago that could achieve the same mileage as these gee whiz complicated as all get out hybrid cars. What's the benefit fo the complex hybnrid technology, other than it costs more? It doesn't help the environment compared to a car that gets the same mileage without the extra technology, in fact quite the opposite considering what goes in to making those battery packs and all the extra electronics. It's a solution in search of a problem. --Randy
Choops 43 Nothing wrong with a model T. It's feul mileage is a poor reason to use to avoid new technologly. Steve
43
Nothing wrong with a model T. It's feul mileage is a poor reason to use to avoid new technologly.
Steve
Ok then something more recent - we had cars 10-15 years ago that could achieve the same mileage as these gee whiz complicated as all get out hybrid cars. What's the benefit fo the complex hybnrid technology, other than it costs more? It doesn't help the environment compared to a car that gets the same mileage without the extra technology, in fact quite the opposite considering what goes in to making those battery packs and all the extra electronics. It's a solution in search of a problem.
Hopefully without getting in trouble for going off topic, one more comment on this side topic.
Randy, Steve is right, at least on one point. Cars are larger and heavier than they have been in nearly three decades because of safety advancements. Even the move to lighter, stronger materials has only partly offset this.
Example, my wife's full sized FORD FLEX has nearly identical external dimensions to the 1969 Checker station wagon I learned to drive on. And it has similar interior utility, but actually slighly smaller interior dimensions do to safety design - thicker doors, etc.
But here is the rub, the 1969 Checker weighed 3800 lbs, was powered by a 327 cid V8 (5.35 L), had 275 HP, and got 24 MPG highway.
The FLEX on the other hand weighs a massive 4800 lbs, is powered by 213 cid (3.5 L) V6 with twin turbos, has 365 HP, and get 25 MPG highway.
So we have given up maximum fuel economy to balance the demands of improved performance and better safety.
The engine in the FLEX is way more efficent (and 97% cleaner) than the engine that was in the Checker, but we are using that power differently, not for maximum fuel economy.
As for hybrids, I'm not sold. I think either the dead cylinder approach or FORD's turbo technology are better solutions - until we come up with the ultimate battery.......
Ulrich,
I believe the term "avoid" was used to describe those who dared to examine and question whether a new technology was worth the consideration, time, and money. They are probably the same ones who would rather work on their layout than stand all night in line waiting for the latest-and-greatest smartphone to go on sale.
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Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.