Electronics and DCC

I've seen it, Joe. Pretty neat stuff. If I build another, more ambitious layout with more locos, I will get into this latest series of posts. Right now, my SEB and two DCC locos are all I can handle!

so many posts that threads tend to get lost . we really need to get sticky threads around here !

If you click on "Watch this topic", the forum will notify you when there is a reply, and you can just click on the address that's included in the email. Of course I haven't been following my own advise, so I end up looking through the forum until I find this thread. Sometimes that is good, sometimes not.
Bob Hayes

Joe,

Just went through and got caught up with this thread and the scenery one. I've got the Design for Ops one bookmarked.

They look like they'll make a great working aid along with the DVDs.

And I finally understand how you are wiring in the 1156s - the NMRA Conference DVD jumped straight to the last slide and my eyes crossed tracking all those wires!

With any luck I'll get my father-in-law to look at this thread, he just bought a Digitrax Zephyr w/radio rcv'r and a UT-4R.

QUOTE: Originally posted by ereimer so many posts that threads tend to get lost . we really need to get sticky threads around here !

I agree wholeheartedly.

To the powers that be : please sticky this and the other forum clinics.

I find this very interesting; Joe gets upset if there are no responses to his clinic chapters in the first 1 or 2 days, but he hasn't posted any up dates to this forum clinic in the last 7 days and I note he is not on vacation! To paraphrase other posters "What's up with" Joe?

Bob Hayes

My nose is in video land at the moment trying to get video volume 3 put to bed. It was originally due out in May, but the comments from the postings on this topic have helped me see where certain topics needed more work.

So I'm adding another 20 minutes to an already 80 minute video to make sure it's as clear and understandable as possible. Technical material can be really bad if it's confusing, and I want this video to be the best yet, and full of *very useful* material.

So that's what I've been up to in the last few weeks, and I'm pushing hard to get done so we can ship it in July.[:D]

I plan to post the next installment on here within the next day or two ... I'm alive and well -- just very, very busy!

TOPIC NEXT POST: Super-simple decoder programming with DecoderPro

Okay, you've got your computer connected to your command station, now how do you use DecoderPro to do it's thing?


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Let's program this Kato SD45, SP 7444, on the programming track. I have a Digitrax DH142 decoder installed, and I need to set up the decoder for this loco. I place the loco on the programming track, and fire up DecoderPro on my laptop, which is connected to my EasyDCC system with a special serial cable as we discussed earlier.

Click the “Use Programming Track” button.


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In the service mode programming window, we select the decoder type from the list, which is a Digitrax DH142 ...


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... and click “open programmer”.


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The progamming window comes up and we fill out the first panel with some basic info we want to keep about our loco like it's ID - SP7444, road name - SP, road number 7444, manufacturer – Kato, and model – an SD45R.


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MORE TABS, MORE THINGS WE CAN PROGRAM
Let's see what other tabs we have ... we have the basic tab, which lists general address configuration settings, then we have the motor tab, which lets you set acceleration, deceleration, and motor voltages.


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The speed control tab allows you to program detailed speed curves, the function map tab lets you remap function keys (depending on what the decoder allows), the lights tab lets you set how you want any headlight effects to work, the consist tab lets you make the loco part of a consist, the advanced tab lists any extra decoder features ... the CVs tab lists all the CVs in a spreadsheet like format, and the vendor specific tab – Digitrax in this case – lists any extra special settings that apply only to Digitrax decoders.


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Focusing on the basic tab for a moment, I set the primary address to 44 since I use the last two digits on the cab when I use the short address. I set the long address to 7444, which is the full address of the loco. I stay with the normal direction default of forward, and set the speed steps to 28/128. I make sure analog conversion mode is always off on all my decoders, since I find decoder performance to be much more reliable with this setting.


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Finally I put my private ID in the two fields at the right.

Looking at the buttons on the bottom for a moment we see you can read changes on the sheet, write changes on the sheet, read the full sheet, or write the full sheet.


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HOW DECODERPRO MARKS FIELDS FOR YOU
DecoderPro marks all fields at program startup to yellow. If you change the value of a field, it sets the field to orange. If you click write changes on sheet, it will write only the orange fields to the decoder. As it writes the fields, it sets them to red. Once the fields have been written to the decoder, they change to white.


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I don't recommend you use the read buttons very often unless you are willing to be patient because the command station has to do the 20 questions approach, asking “are you a 1, are you a 2, and so on” which can be quite slow. Never do “read full sheet” unless you are going to lunch because it can literally take that long to read back all the CVs in a decoder.

If I want to know what the values are in a decoder, I write them to the decoder using DecoderPro, then save them to the PC. Since I use decoderPro exclusively now to set CVs, I can just bring up the file later on the PC if I want to know what the CVs are set to. If the loco is acting funny, I'll just put it on the programming track and reload all the CVs with DecoderPro and that usually fixes the problem.

Moving on the motor tab, I typically set the kick start value to 10, the acceleration rate to 4 and the deceleration rate to 4. I find just a slight bit of delay smooths out the loco response but isn't so much that it irritates my operators.


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The last three compensation settings are for back emf on Digitrax decoders. I stay with the default of 128 for static compensation, but set the dynamic compensation to 5 and the droop to 8. This gives a gentle back emf compensation to smooth loco operation, but that still requires you to work the throttle some on curves and hills. Too much compensation makes the loco run the same speed everywhere – up hills, down hills, through curves – which is a great trick, but not very realistic.

We write these settings to the decoder, and then move to the speed control tab.

I prefer to use speed curves in all my locos, as opposed to voltage settings. For the moment, I set the first speed step to 18 and click constant ratio curve. I leave the forward and reverse trim at the default of 128, and we write the changes on the sheet to the decoder.


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Click “Save” under the file menu to save your decoder settings to disk.


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TOPIC NEXT POST: Cool ways to use DecoderPro for programming on the main

Thanks Joe, I appreciate your hints on your default settings. I have used Decoder Pro for a few months now and could not imagine programming without it.

What is the best wireless systeam to get and what is the cost??

*Best* is a loaded term. Cheapest? Most user friendly? Best radio reception range? Most features?

Joe, you are a tremendous asset to our forum. I add my thanks for your clinics… very helpful stuff for me. I can’t afford the Serial to USB interface and Digitrax interface required for the computer programming yet, but sounds like good stuff for the wish list.

jxtrrx:

Thanks ... I love to teach, and this forum, as well as the how-to videos I'm producing give me a chance to take the hobby I love and join it with teaching!

The Siskiyou Line video series allows me to put useful how-tos onto video, and after that series is done, who knows? I'd like to see an entire library of how-to videos built up and made accessible over the internet. Nothing like watching how it's done to finally "get it" ! [:D]

oleirish:

No response as to what you meant by "best" wireless system, so I will define best as "best radio reception" in terms of reliability, and add the requirement that the throttle must be truly wireless with no need to ever plug in (rules out Digitrax). And further, the throttle must use a rotary knob for speed control, not a keypad (rules out Lenz).

This leaves the other two biggies, NCE and EasyDCC. I have EasyDCC and have used NCE wireless on a few layouts as a guest operator. I've also downloaded and read the manuals for NCE.

My experience using NCE wireless was less than stellar. Reception was not always reliable and subject to odd behavior. One case in particular had the owner so fit to be tied that he said if NCE didn't get this problem solved, he was seriously considering changing systems. I have heard NCE doubled the length of their receiver antenna and strengthened the signal a bit in an attempt to improve things, but I have not heard if this has solved these teething pains.

EasyDCC wireless, in my experience, was a bit finicky when I first got my system in 2000, with reception sometimes being poor at one extreme end of my layout behind a peninsula and a house wall. I did find that even in this location if I dropped the throttle down below my waist and pointed it at the ground, the signal was received -- so I had a workaround and I just taught my operators to do that if they had a reception problem.

In 2002, they released a firmware upgrade for the EasyDCC system and receiver. Immediately the reception problem went away and has been rock solid ever since. So in my experience, the most reliable wireless reception is EasyDCC. And the EasyDCC wireless throttles are about $20 cheaper than the NCE wireless throttles.

All purely my personal preference and opinion, of course. Each person must define *best* for themselves, and you can see here how I have defined it for myself.

JMRI just released a new version (1.6) which offers a number of new decoder definitions and other enhancements. I have downloaded it but not had a chance to play with it yet. I don't think that this release has the full QSI support implemented yet.