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Digitrax versus NCE

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  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Sebring FL
  • 842 posts
Posted by floridaflyer on Friday, July 12, 2024 2:28 PM

What maxman said

  • Member since
    August 2015
  • 26 posts
Posted by ALEXANDER WOOD on Saturday, July 13, 2024 10:50 AM

reasearchhound
Well, we had our board meeting and 10 out of 11 voted to keep our Digitrax system, but begin swapping out our older 5amp boosters for new 8amp ones.

I am pleased with the results.

That's a good decision. I would, however, like the others have said, focus on the actual problems before replacing ANYTHING. If one booster or power supply is bad, that one section will have issues and the others will not. Make sure the wiring is up to snuff, make sure your users aren't going rogue and performing unauthorized actions, make sure you have PSX/PSXX breakers on every power district and can isolate any electrical issues that come up.

Digitrax has a reputation of being hard to use. This was true with the DT100 and to an extent the DT300. It is NOT true with the DT400 series, they are on part with NCE, but then Digitrax seems to have regressed with the DT602 and UT6 with some truly weird design and UI/UX decisions.

  • Member since
    June 2007
  • 8,892 posts
Posted by riogrande5761 on Sunday, July 14, 2024 10:21 AM

ALEXANDER WOOD
with the DT400 series, they are on part with NCE, but then Digitrax seems to have regressed with the DT602 and UT6 with some truly weird design and UI/UX decisions.

Since I have switched to a different DCC system, I have a hardly ever used DT402D I am happy to part with if anyone is interested

Rio Grande.  The Action Road  - Focus 1977-1983

  • Member since
    May 2002
  • From: Massachusetts
  • 2,899 posts
Posted by Paul3 on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 1:08 PM

As a 25-year Digitrax user, the original problem of the layout randomly shutting down during operations is almost certainly caused by users of DT400/500-series throttles not knowing the difference between "local" stop and "global" stop.

On a Digitrax DT400 or 500, the Emergency Stop button can be programmed to work in one of two ways.  When the throttle is programmed to "local" stop, pressing the Emergency Stop button only zeros out the active throttle (pressing it again zeros out the other throttle) and cancels out any CV04 coasting momentum.  This only effects addresses being run by this one throttle only.

When a throttle is programmed to "global" stop, pressing the Emergency Stop button puts the layout into "Pause" mode. 

Every Digitrax system has three power modes: On, Off, and Pause.  On a DT400 or DT500-series throttle, there's a pixel in the upper right corner of the screen.  If this dot is on, the track power is on.  If it's off, the track power is off.  If the dot is blinking, the layout is paused.  Normally, the only way to pause the layout is to hit the Power button once, then hit "+" when the layout is already turned on (do it again to unpause).

"In pause" mode, all trains stop, thus the global aspect of the name.  Note that this does not zero out any throttles; it only stops trains from running.  When un-paused, all trains will resume at their current throttle setting.

A few end users at clubs like to think that they know what they're doing and they program their own throttles to be "global" stop (note that "local" stop is the default setting).  I guess they think that "global" sounds better than "local"?  Anyways, these folks also like to play with momentum effects like CV04, and when they get into trouble (like they're gonna hit a bumper or miss a Kadee magnet), they hit Emergency Stop and put the layout into Pause mode.

We've had so many incidents like this that we've had to teach every member what it means and to follow a set of programming guidelines for each throttle they have.

Please note that when a layout is paused, the track power is still on.  All headlights continue to function (but are not controllable), the status lights remain on and constant, etc., but no trains will move until it is unpaused.  The only way to tell if the layout is paused is to look at a throttle and look for the dot or, for a DT600, it will say "Paused".

  • Member since
    September 2004
  • From: Dearborn Station
  • 24,280 posts
Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 2:17 PM

Interesting post, Paul. That sure sounds like what happened at the OP's club.

Rich 

Alton Junction

  • Member since
    March 2019
  • 213 posts
Posted by reasearchhound on Thursday, July 18, 2024 10:37 AM

Thanks for the info. Copied it and sent it on to the member who is in charge of getting the throttles to behave. He was at the club yesterday afternoon and managed to corral a few personal throttles and reconfigured them.

  • Member since
    August 2015
  • 26 posts
Posted by ALEXANDER WOOD on Thursday, July 18, 2024 5:07 PM

Great post Paul. That was one thing that didn't even occur to me. I don't understand why people even use E-stop in the first place, it seems like cheating the system. If something really bad is going to happen, I can just hold the locomotive down or pull it back.

  • Member since
    December 2006
  • 1,879 posts
Posted by YoHo1975 on Saturday, July 20, 2024 2:54 AM

We had to do that with our UWT throttles too and our NCE throttles. Because people panic....especially when they forget that they are running a loco with a TCS decoder set up for momentum and braking and they didn't plan properly. 

  • Member since
    July 2008
  • 1,206 posts
Posted by mfm37 on Saturday, July 20, 2024 8:00 AM

That "Global: stop is a PITA. At the large N Scale  Layout in Louisville in 2008 all throttles had to have that turned off. Throttles were inspected by the DCC Staff before they could run a train on the red line.

I recall talking to A.J. Ireland about this feature. He told me that he would have left that feature out if it wasn't something many individual operators wanted.

When that dot is blinking, DCC packets are stopped but track power stays on. I've even taken phone calls while away from a layout to "fix" that problem.

Martin Myers

  • Member since
    February 2008
  • 8,829 posts
Posted by maxman on Saturday, July 20, 2024 1:32 PM

And hopefully this will be a less expensive solution than spending X amount of dollars for un-needed boosters.

I would suggest the following for repeat offenders:

A labeled diagram of a hammer

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