Has anyone tried Tam Valley's new BlueRailDCC boards that can control DCC decoders?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsFtiFUUkk
This is a new DCC version of BlueRail.
wireless front-end for an existing decoder. not sure where is gets DC power from (battery, additional rectifier circuit and track)?
(less primitive DCC)
84
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
I suspect this could be compared to the CVP M15, the manual for which is accessible online.
http://cvpusa.com/doc_center/r2_M15_User_Guide_web.pdf
Note that they do not make any excuses for wiring a standard NMRA connector 'backward' even though they don't hardwire any connections as sold. Note also that they cover simple LED testing for the kind of polarity issues LocoFi seems to be using as an excuse for their nonstandard decoder-connector wiring.
Reading the instructions, it seems the BlueRailDCC boards are expected to be used with a true dead rail setup, using an on-board battery, or else always-on steady DC voltage in the track like RailPro, although they do have a slightly different version that incorporates a rectifier to use with AC track power fo S and O scale locos. They don't mention that this is capable of also workign with DCC track power, so I suspect not.
The CVP M15, while it doesn;t come with an 8 pin DCC connection, uses a common positive for the solder pads for LEDs, as seen in the manual. So connecting it to an 8 pin plug, as also shown in the manual, is easy, and of course since it follows the same convention as standard DCC decoders, it truly does just plug in.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I read through the online user guide:
http://bluerailtrains.com/blueraildcc/userguide/
It looks pretty straight forward. It says it can be powered by DC, DCC, AC or battery. It looks like the Android version of the app does not yet support this new BlueRailDCC product (so iOS only for now). I recall from their first product that they develop in iOS, then follow up with Android. I do like their speed-matching and consisting interface (at the bottom of the app section of the guide). I'm glad that they chose to support DCC (their first product did not).
gigasaurusIt says it can be powered by DC, DCC, AC or battery.
looking more closely at the image of their board i see a bridge rectifier, yet they label the power connections as + and -. confusing ??
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Photos for reference only, I suspect.
If you look at the site, there are 4 variations of the 2 amp board:
http://deadrailinstalls.com/blue-rail/
There's a 2 amp board with built-in antenna, a 2 amp board with an external antenna connection (but the picture is of the same board, I see no u.fl on the board) and then there are a pair of 2 amp board to use if you "want to power you loco with AC track power". All 4 pictures show the exact same board, with the bridge rectifier. And no u.fl antenna connector. At least some of those pictures are not of the actual item referenced.
I think the little bluetooth module (the thing with the white sticker on it) comes in two flavors: The BMD-300 has a small integrated antenna. The BMD-301 has a connector for a u.fl antenna. If you order the board with the external antenna, it comes with a BMD-301 with a u.fl antenna attached to the module.
You can see the antenna version on the 5-amp board in the video. They probably should have included that in the graphics on their site.
That is confusing. I believe they had an earlier version of the board which did not have a bridge rectifier, and the +/- never got removed. They should clean that up - it is confusing.
not familiar with their existing/previous product, which may be nothing other than what this new thing is without the ability to drive a dcc decoder (e.g. generate DCC packets).
adding an on-board bridge suggests it intended to to run on a DCC layout
if you have room for both and assuming their board has comparable performance (e.g. BEMF) a simple DCC decoder seems redundant
but seems it may be nice to have a sound so use their board with a sound decoder
if they come out with a version with sound, there's no need for the DCC decoder and more room to fit their unit.
Making a sound decoder is actually pretty easy - after all it's just some stored data and an analkog output with an amplifier. You can hook an SD card to an Arduino to store audio files and play them back. You're not really manipulating the sound files, just triggering different tracks based on events, ie get an F2 ON DCC packet, play the whistle file.
The hard part is getting access to get recordings, and the recording hardware, and the software to process the resulting files for clean sound and get them shrunk down, compressing the dynamic range as well as the frequency range to suit the small speakers, etc.
So it makes perfect sense that they make the BT receiver generate a DCC signal so you can (optionally, with this line - there is that jumper to select if it puts out DCC or just hooks right to a motor) use your preferred DCC decoder. Ring has sound decoders for their system, but the sound availability is very limited compared to any of the DCC soudn decoder vendors offerings.
The main difference between this and the previous Tam Valley DRS is that this is direct BT, the old system did not use BT radio, but a different ISM band, and had a transmitter that connected to the track output of a DCC system to send DCC signals wirelessly to the loco receivers which then controlled a standard DCC decoder. So it workes exactly like a standard DCC system, except the DCC commands were delivered via radio instead of through the rails, allowing the loco to run off of onboard batteries or other source besides DCC rail power.