Is Your Layout DC or DCC

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


Is your layout DC or DCC or both?

  • DC

    Votes: 12 29.3%

  • DCC

    Votes: 23 56.1%

  • Both

    Votes: 6 14.6%
  • Total voters
    41
montanan said:
That's interesting to know. I don't operate it on a regular basis, only when visiting layouts that are DCC. I will have to ask someone when I am at one of these layouts. It does have a nice sound system, but when operating on a strange layout, most of my attention is on getting my assignments done in a timely manner. Keeps my attention and not much time to experiment. I have no way to test it at home as I have no DCC system available. It would be interesting to know how they do it. With the PFM system, there is a lever that you moved down and depending on how far down you move it, it would vary the whistle accordingly. Don't know how they can do that with a button. I'll have to look into this. Thanks
Click to expand...
On a Digitrax system, you would need to go into the settings of the throttle, and make F2 analog, then enable playable whistle. How hard you push the F2 button is how much virtual steam goes knto the whistle.
On an NCE system, you do basically the same thing, but moving the throttle dial up and down while holding the horn button down quills the whistle.
In any case, you will need to configure a cv to make the whistle playable. I personally think the playable whistle in a Tsunami isn't all that much to get excited over, anyway.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the info. The Yellowstone has great sound. With a fairly large tender, my friend was able to put a somewhat larger speaker in.

I will have to make one comment on sound. With one or two trains running at the same time, I enjoyed the sound, but at one large club layout I was invited to operate at, at one time we had over 20 locomotives operating at the same time, most, if not all sound equipped, and after a while, the "noise" was annoying to me. I think part of it may be because the volume was turned up too high on many of the units. I will admit that it was a lot of fun operating so many trains at the same time. They has fully operating signals which made things a lot more interesting. If you didn't pay attention, it could turn into quite a mess, and you could get your butt chewed out by the dispatcher.
 
On my sound equipped engines, I turn down all the individual sounds down except the horn or whistle. That gets turned up. You can hear a horn or whistle from a mile away, but you can't hear all the other stuff from that far. If you can hear everything clearly from more than five feet away, it's too loud.
 


Obviously, the sounds were turned turned up too high. The room the layout was in was about 100 x 150 feet, and I can tell you, it was just a din of noise.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Over the years I have built several layouts that were all DC. I always said that I was a "builder,not an operator" because it was a lot more fun building the layout than actually running it. Well, this time around I decided to go with a good operating system right off the bat and build the railroad around it. Money is an issue too, as I am on a fixed income so each expenditure is carefully considered before I buy something. Last fall I went ahead and purchased a RailPro system which I am absolutely thrilled with. For about $450.00 I got a state of the art wireless control and sound modules for two locomotives which is comparable in price of DCC system with a wireless controller. No more to buy except for modules which I will add as I go along. Now I am running trains and having a huge amount of fun, this system is so easy to install and operate, I can MU a dozen locos that are all different makes and types in less than a minute. I realize RailPro is not DC or DCC and neither is wifi, but they can be called the next generation of model railroad control. Model railroading is so much more fun.

Mel
 
This time around I am going DCC on my new layout. I find it it so much better than DC. To be able to run mutipal locos on the same track, control motor parameters, set momentum etc , to me is well worth it. The Ring product has caught my attension however I have already purchased two NCE throttles. One starter kit and one Radio throttle with remote a 5 amp module along with having 5 DCC locos. Decisions, decisions lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top