My little brain on DCC.

Gavin171

New Member
my new layout is just in the planning stage at presant it will be 12' + 25' and basically an oval design most of the scenery will be country side and maybe a third biult up as an industrial plant or coal yard with some shunting going on, at presant i have 14 loco's of various makes most based on southern roads and about 80 wagons from hoppers to box cars the scale is HO' my worry is with differant makes of loco's what 'controller' for DCC & decoders, my stock consists of : 4 atlas decoder equiped sd35,s 1 Broadway emd unit with sound, 2 athearn genisis f3/ab, the rest atlas, protos 1000's, 2000's , and roco's, all dont seem to have dcc plugings but i would like add then later as my knowlegde grows also with sound and lights there will be only one operater me, is there a controller that will cover my needs. . ( i will still need conventional DC). regarding points & signals my little brain can only take so much information in a day! thanks Gavin.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Gavin:
Why do you need the DC? You will have a major headache if you let the DC and DCC contact each other.
Your concern with decoders should be, primarily, how many amps you need and, secondarily, what extra features you need (lamps, sounds...).
If you can find 2 wires going to the motor, you should be able to install a chip in them. If the motor is fixed to the frame and that is the one connection, you have a lot more work to do.
You need to find a controller that will take enough addresses. I think you should look for one that will take 4 digit addresses.
 

Gavin171

New Member
thanks David I just thought i would be covering my self having DC /DCC just in case there were some locos i could not convert or just not getting around to it for a while it does seem to be a bit of a mine field at the moment, I would quiet happerly do the whole layout to conventional dc but knowing me i will regret it in the long run
 
Hello Gavin. Your locos can take most any brand of decoder that you can fit into the loco. Your decision will be what type of command station/booster (what you have called the controller) do you want to buy.

There are many brands of command station/boosters on the market from Digitrax to Lenz to Atlas to NCE. Very few of the components (eg throttles, jacks, radio control) of these brands are interchangeable. So once you commit to one brand, you have to stay with it. Each brand may have more than one model. For example, the beginner set from Digitrax is the Zephyr (sometimes called the DCS50) with the top of the line being the Chief (sometimes called the DCS 100) and the Empire Builder (sometimes called the DB150) being in the middle. At this point in time, Atlas has only one model but, since the Atlas model is made by Lenz, you might be able to upgrade to Lenz if you decide later on to upgrade.

Since it sounds as if you're just getting into DCC, check out some of the websites that are listed in the sticky at the top of the page. It may sound very confusing at first but stick with it. And always ask questions, whether it's on this or other forums, a MR club that uses DCC, or a friend.

For more info, visit this page on my website.
http://www.railwaybob.com/Modules/WhatIsDCC/DCCWhatIs01.htm
 
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