I bought 4 engines that all have the same number, and are DCC. How would I be able to control them seperately using DCC (One forward, one backward at the front of the train and the same at the rear of the train)? I am new to model railroading and have no experience with this.
Sorry. All engines with the same address will respond to commands to that address. You can change the address without renumbering the locomotive.
For your purpose, you could consist the engines together and get the forward/reverse behavior you want. Take them all off the track and only put one at a time into the consist.
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If this is what you want to do, why would you need to control them separately? Seems to me all you would need to do is change CV29 in 2 locos and program them to run backwards normally. What kind of decoders are in the locos?
Granted, not all motors run the same speed, but I don't think speed matching would be much of an issue. Why change 3 of the cab numbers, only to consist them in a MU, then program those 3 under the main loco.......they all already think they're the main loco.
Terry
Inspired by Addiction
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Not much you can do except give them each a different address, and try to remember it. A small sticky dot with the address written on it can stick to the bottom of the fual tank and not be seen during normal operation - that's what usually happens ont he club layout. W run with a fairly simple rule, since we are a modular layout that gets set up in various venues throughout the year. If you are there to help set the layout up and get it running, you keep your loco address, if someone else show sup in the middle of the wek and wants to run trains and has a loco that conflicts with someone else who was already there, the latest arrival needs to reprogram their loco to a different number, and sticky dots are provided if you want to keep track of what number you were assigned. If no one else has a loco with the sem road number as the one you showed up with, then you can just keep using the road number as the address - but since everyone for the most part models the Reding, you can bet there are a lot of 4-8-4's numbers 2102 floating around, and since P2K only did 4 numbers for GP7's, there are multiple 602's and 607's.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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What type of engines are these? In the 1940's, many railroads bought F-unit diesels in four engine sets, often with the A and B units (i.e. engines with cabs and 'boosters' with no cab) connected by a drawbar. Often, they gave all four units the same number, sometimes with a different letter (A,B,C and D for example) as part of the ID number of the unit. That's the only time a railroad would give several engines the same number.
If you have four engines from four different railroads, but all four have the same number, it isn't hard to re-number them with decals so they're different numbers.
MentalI bought 4 engines that all have the same number, and are DCC. How would I be able to control them seperately using DCC (One forward, one backward at the front of the train and the same at the rear of the train)? I am new to model railroading and have no experience with this.
Not sure if your talking about the number on the locomotives, or the fact that they all run, by default, on address 3.
If your totally new at this, I think you should spend some time going over the operation of whatever DCC system you have, and learn about addresses, CV's, and such, and get familiar with running trains.
Mike.
My You Tube
You may be underestimating the difficulty of running with front engines and pusher engines behind. Do you need that much power? How many cars in the train? If you run all the engines as one, you risk "stringlining" the train and causing derailments. If nothing else, put all 4 engines in front to make them easier to control.
Thats actually a really good idea. Thanks for it. Just have to change 1 number and boom, they run the same direction backwards. Simple and easy.
MentalI bought 4 engines that all have the same number, and are DCC. How would I be able to control them seperately using DCC (One forward, one backward at the front of the train and the same at the rear of the train)?
If I recall correctly and they are numbered the same (e.g., 5555) and you want to run them in consist, you can call them all the same thing if:
a) they are all running the same direction, and
b) they are all separately speed matched (to the extent needed), and
c) if any need to run in reverse as consisted, you separately program those decoders (with CV29, Decoder Pro, etc.) to run in opposite of standard direction, and
d) you can remember (or identify) which one is which (so you know how a given one is programmed). You can depend on forgetting if you do not take notes or have an alternate approach.
But there may be other options you may like better. If you could advise: loco types, decoder type, loco number that would help? As well as your DCC system type, and do you use JMRI Decoder Pro, etc.?
As an example, I have a diesel A & B unit that are numbered (only 3 digits) something like 777 and 777B on the shell. I simply changed their address to 7771 & 7772, respectively. I can remember that and I am the only operator (do not take it to a club layout).
I certainly agree with Mr. B that, if new to DCC, you might want to start with simpler operation (all locos at front), then progress to rear pushers. And plan to learn speed matching techniques, eventually if not now.
So, more info would help to clarify your options.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
I'm terrible at speed-matching. The only time I had rear pushers was on a club layout, with a couple of dummies :)
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
Yeah I was going to renumber them from 5020 to 5020, 5021, 5022, and 5023 respectively. I can remember that and control them each seperately.
=D
Maybe I am missing something, but if I understand this, you have 4 locomotives, all have the same road number and you want to run them together in a consist and do not know how to program them so they can be controlled all at once.
If this is the case, just give them different CV ID numbers like 5020, 5021, 5022 and 5023. This makes them 4 independent locomotives. After that, create a consist of the 4 locomotives. When you create the consist and give it a single consist ID number, anywhere between 1-127. You will designate one of them to be the forward loco running in the forward direction, designate a second loco to be the rear loco, most likely running in the reverse direction, and the other two to be interior locos running in whatever direction you need based on how they are placed in the consist. After that, you only need to remember the consist number, not all 4 of the loco's numbers.
Once you have done this and they have been assigned to a consist ID number (not a locomotive ID number), enter the consist ID number into your Cab and they are all controlled together like they were 1 big locomotive.
The reason for assigning one to be the front loco and one to be the rear loco is for controlling lights. If the coinsist is running forward, only the lead loco's lights are on. If running in reverse, only the rear loco's lights are on. None of the center loco's lights will be on. Programming the lights, horns and bells will also require some more programming, but the loco's motors will all work correctly.
Remember, to control them as individual locomotives, you will need to kill the consist.
Another method is to just assign the same number to all of them and they will all respond as if they were the same loco, but when you turn the lights on, they will all come on. Same with horns and bells, they will all work, not just the lead loco's. You can assign a reverse direction control code to one of the locos to have it run forward while facing backwards, but it will only work that way all the time.
Either will work, just depends of how you want the train to appear.