DCC How to get started.

[Anonymous]

Hav some extra time on my hand and found some N-scale stuff I had bought a few years ago and thought about geting started. What is DCC control and how do I get started? Thanks Ralf

[Anonymous]

That is not the remote control that will be talked about. The remote control units being talked about are the RCO units that are being rolled out all over the class 1 systems. Rodney

[Anonymous]

Hello Ralf,

Don't sweat being in the wrong section of the forum -- the tent's plenty big. Most of these kinds of questions are asked and answered in the Model Railroading section of the forum.

DCC stands for Digital Command Control. In short, a digital command control decoder is interfaced between the track and motor in a locomotive. The decoder is pretty small and is carried inside the locomotive. In addition to voltage that the rails carry, the rails also carry a digital signal for each decoder, and each decoder has an address (kind of like a telephone number). It will only respond (ring) to commands sent to its address.

The decoder tells the motor how fast to turn, which direction to move, turns lights off an on, and some even generate realistic locomotive sounds.

Here are some articles on this Web site that will help answer your questions:

DCC: what it is and what it does
DCC buyer's guide
DCC manufacturers and suppliers

This should get you started. I have DCC and it's a blast!

Regards,

Paul Schmidt
Contributing Editor
Trains.com