Returning to the hobby after 35 years and completely baffled by DCC. I have a wiring book, but does anyone make planning software to help me with DCC wiring? Where I should have insulated joiners, marking left vs. right rail, reversing circuits for wyes and reversing loops, etc? I'm using SCARM for track planning but really need some help getting started on the right foot with DCC before I start laying track. Thanks!
Welcome to the forum, your posts will be moderated for a few more, so it will be frustrating to try to respond in real time, but it gets better quickly.
Is your wiring book DCC? Maybe a second book would be clearer. This site might be helpful http://www.wiringfordcc.com/ but if you feel hopelessly lost, it might not. Bookmark it anyway. As far as I know, the software you seek does not exist.
I think you are asking about power districts, frogs, and reversing circuits. In some introductory books, they like to show multiple boosters supplying districts in a layout that would need a barn to hold it. For a big newbie, applying that concept to a smaller shelf layout is a big step.
Power districts exist for 3 possible reasons. In the event of a short, it prevents the entire layout from shutting down, limits your search for the cause of the shutdown to a specific section of the layout and for large layouts that need multiple power boosters.
Reversing loops require some method to reverse current in the loop. The same thing happened in DC with DPDT switches. Identifying the existence of a reversing loop is also the same as in DC. Getting the automatic reversers to play well with circuit breakers (you didn't ask about those but you may need some) is tricky.
Here's what the forum can do to help you. Let the layout gurus look at your layout before the electrical wizards. In the layout section of the forum post a photo or drawing of your layout. Invariably the written description of a proposed layout is misleading, subject to mutiple interpretations or uses turnouts, aisles or dimensions that can't possibly work. Once you are are happy that your layout is looking good, post the final layout diagram in this section and ask your questions.
Two important points:
Newbies never give us enough information. We are supposed to guess room size, era, scale, equipment size you plan to use, etc. Tell us everything.
You have to follow the directions to post a picture. You can't link to google pictures or facebook or a file on your computer. You can't copy and paste a picture in you post.
This means you have to upload the picture to Photobucket.com or Imgur.com and get the share link for the photo, which almost never is the web address in your browser. That link has to end in a recognized picture format, not a number, but a .jpg, .bmp, or . png. The first link is how to post pictures, the second has pictures on how to upload and get a link in Photobucket.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/249194.aspx
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Hi Nick,
Although a little bit dated now, Lionel Stang wrote a very good book on DCC about 10 years ago called "DCC Made Easy". He has a real knack for explaining complicated things in very understandable terms - i.e. without dummying it down. Kalmback also has some newer DCC books (one called "DCC Wiring For Your Model Railroad"/Mike Polsgrove) but I don't know how good they are.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Nick,
I was in a similar boat about one year ago when I got back into hobby and committed to N scale DCC. Most track design software is focused on track geometry and offers little help to applying DCC. You will need to go elsewhere to get a full understanding of DCC. Actually, it is not as difficult as it may seem once you start understanding the principles involved. I found two books that were very helpful to me.
The Lionel Strang book mentioned earlier is good but rather generic. The devil is in the details. I chose Digitrax for my DCC system but there are a number of other options. As a newbe, I recommend you pick a system and focus on it for components rather than mix & match between system. Although possible, it can get tricky since most mfg's offer features beyond the standard and those added features will not always place nice with other systems. Since I chose Digitrax, I found the book "The Digitrax Big Book of DCC" to be extremely valuable. It offeres a lot of details on the concepts and components required to make a complete system. Wiring is just part of the puzzle. The book uses Digitrax component for the examples but the same concepts apply to other system using the components for other systems. I am not aware of a similar book focused on other system.
Another issue is choice of your track system. I started to use traditional flex track and Peco turnouts but later decided to shift to Kato Unitrack. Lots of different opinions on this point but that decision will impact many of the details on how you implement DCC since traditional track vs Unitrack will drive differnet decisions in implementing DCC such as how you control your turnouts, wire them and etc. I found that Unitrack was a lot easier for an old guy like me to implement plus if you change your mind on layout design, changing it is easy. If you are not sure of what direction to go, get some Kato Unitrack and put a tiny layout together, hook it up to a very basic DCC system such as the Digitrax Zeypher and you are in business with a great learning tool. Allows you to experiment and make decision before you install a larger system. If you decide on Unitrack, you can add track segments to migrate toward a larger system.
As noted earlier, when you ask question, give us the full story. Hard to trouble shoot a question like "Why will my car engine not run?"
Paul D
N scale Washita and Santa Fe RailroadSouthern Oklahoma circa late 70's
Thank you all for your suggestions. This will be an 16x12 HO layout using (planned) Peco and Shinohara materials. I haven't selected a DCC system yet, was hoping to make sure I had a plan to follow before spending money in that area so I know exactly what components I'll need. Image added to my original post.
First, don't make it more complicated than it has to be.
DCC is, at its base, electricity. Therefore, most of the rules from the dawn of the hobby still apply. If you have a reverse loop, you need gaps. Don't feed a solid-frog turnout from the frog end. Et cetera.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
It is absolutely no harder than DC in terms of wiring. Just use DCC friendly turnouts and crossings and you will be set.*That said you will need reverse loop (autoreverse) on your Wye reverser and isolate one of the legs. And another on the big loop on the upper left from the curved turnout to where it rejoins the yard, just before the switch. You would have to do the same thing under DC, so like I said, no harder.Look at the areas in red below. These would be isolated on each end and have an auto reverser.
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
Nick that was quick. I am not the layout or electrical whiz but the Wye is a reversing loop as is the track that goes into the loop on the upper left. You have one or two 3-way turnouts. Search the forum, these can be problematic as far as shorting (in the middle route, I think)
Nothing stands out as impossible unless there are overpasses involved in the 4 crossings at 3 o'clock and even then it may not be a problem. It doesn't look like a lot of space for industries though. A word of warning about Scarm. It allowed me to design Walthers code 83 turnouts closer, side by side, than was actually possible and still have room for the switch bar.
Best of luck.
Hmm, that might be an interesting bit of software if someone can figure out how to do it.
Brand of DCC system has no effect on how you wire at the track level.
Any and all old DC methods pretyy much apply, especially with turnouts - power routing live frog turnouts like Electrofrogs need to be powered only fromt he poiint side - they need gaps in the diverging frog rails, same as they always have since the dawn of 2 rail wiring. The only real difference between DC and DCC wiring is how you handle the reverse loop problem. With DC, you reverse the main after the train is within the loop. With DCC, you reverse the loop while the train is fully in it. The DC method works just fine with DCC, actually. The main reason we reverse the loop itself with DCC is because that typically means the switching device (autoreverser) only has to handle the load of a single train, not the entire rest of the layout.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
If you want to understand wiring and gapping requirements, hand draw your track diagram, using two different color lead pencils such as red and blue, each color to represent its own rail. Whenever opposite colored rails join together, you have a point of reverse polarity, requiring the use of gaps to isolate a "reversing section" and some mechanism such as a DPDT toggle switch or auto-reverser to flip the polarities inside the reversing section.
Rich
Alton Junction
Nick79MI Thank you all for your suggestions. This will be an 16x12 HO layout using (planned) Peco and Shinohara materials. I haven't selected a DCC system yet, was hoping to make sure I had a plan to follow before spending money in that area so I know exactly what components I'll need. Image added to my original post.
Be careful mixing different brands of track/turnouts. The cross-section of the rails are different from various manufacturers. The rail joiners for one doesn't necessarily fit the other. There are other small variations such as thickness of the ties that will make the overall track hieght lower or higher, etc.
That's not to say they can't be used together, it's just going to be a lot more work (and frustration depending on how much you like doing that kind of thing or not)