Hi there. For some reason the search function does not seem to work so apologize in advance if this question has been asked before. As I working on my z scale layout with my son I am thinking about what's next... This time; an Era IV layout for myself which I would love to equip with DCC. As I am reading up on the topic, I see many of you recommending NCE Power Cab. One major reason being the 12V/1.5Amps power output to the track. Since the posts I have been looking at 10+ years old(!) - damn we're getting older - I am would like to know the following: 1. Is NCE still a preferred DCC System manufacturer? 2. If yes, what Power Cab should I be considering for z scale? 3. Any other manufacturers that cater to z scale? Again apologize if this was asked before but the search function returns no results. Thanks in advance for your responses! -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yes. Yes. There are other manufacturers but most all have lots of accessories or newer designs. We see these more for larger, more used, OPS session (group people emulating a railroad). All are designed with HO (most popular) and N. Even O. And these are powered by 5-10 Boosters. Even the Digitrax Zephyr is over powered. if you get a short (usually on switches), you get 5-10 Amps (>75~150 watts thru wheel for at least 1/4-1/2 second, then repeat for ever. Kids don’t help . The Power Cab basically is 2 Amps @ 13 Volts, rougly 30 Watts. You can change your wall-wart to a 12 Volt but still need ~3 Amps to assure only the track shuts down, not the Power Cab itself (it will recover when the short is removed). Once you discover this, you can try a DCC PowerShield PSX https://tonystrains.com/pdf/dcc_specialties/PSX-Manual-Rev-N-Software-Rev-L-Booklet.pdf which can be jumperd to 1.27 (or steps higher) can be jumperd for Manual reset and supports piezo buzzer & LED In reality, you are: Running 1 train . . . will be running 2 or 3 or maybe four. When running more than 1, you will be running the primary power source but will essentially be the same as the others in running. All of you can change Switches the ACCY (accessories) of another’s route. Its very easy to make a Consist (ACCY, 1, Add Lead Loco, Direction?, Enter. Add helper loco, direction, Enter. Etc. This is the SAFEST way to Consist as it does Nothing to the Loco’s Consist CV. When you do it the ‘old school’ I “highly” recommend, if there is problem helper loco, you can just Delete (Consist button) and add a replacement. With any system, if there is a short, all trains stop, unless you have Blocks (see the ultimate info @the “Wiring for DCC” site: https://wiringfordcc.com/intro2dcc.htm The drawback of the NCE Power Cab is if there a short, everyone stops. No way around it. But this the same as the others (MRC, Zephyr, …. ) There are low cost Boosters for isolated but the all are 5+ Amps ‘boosters’ like Tam Valley’s http://www.tamvalleydepot.com/products/dccbooster.html but these trip @5 A. Hopes this helps.
Very informative thank you so much for providing your thoughts!! Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
All trains stopping on a short is not neccessarily a bad thing on a smaller layout. If you are running another train on the same track you don't want an active train in a live block rear-ending your stalled train before you can clear the short.
If it helps at all I'm just planning on running DCC-EX on 12V. Note this is Nn3 rather than Z, but I'm powering my loco I'm designing with a Rokuhan Shorty motor and using a Rokuhan DCC decoder. It's a bit limited functionality wise but will suit my purposes. Incidentally I'm setting the current limit at 500mA so a short disables power fast enough not to burn out the tiny little decoder!
I have been using NCE (2 complete Procab 5A wireless systems) for more than 20 years. NCE is the easiest full featured system. It only lacks 1 feature I want, and that is transponding, which is being able to tell which locomotives or transponding decoders are in which block. It seems Digitrax owns that, but they license it several other DCC manufacturers. In Europe they have a similar feature called Railcom, but I don't know the extent of it's features. Out of all the DCC and LCC features available, both Digitrax and NCE seem to be 20+ years behind the times, but TCS has a new DCC system that offers the Lenz Railcom system, has LCC compatibility, as well as NCE system compatibility. You can upgrade your NCE system to add Railcom and LCC, and your old NCE boosters as well as the rest of your NCE system including their wireless Procabs can be used. At the same time you can also use the TCS wireless cabs as well as your own cell phone and the Engine Driver app because the TCS system broadcasts it's own wi-fi hotspot. And then there is the DCC EX open source project which I suspect will eventually do everything that any of the current DCC systems can do and more down the road. Being like JMRI, where lots of people work on it constantly adding features. This system seems promising because so many people are involved, so expect to see great things there.
Railcom is very convenient for programming on the main. It also allows you to read CV on the main, as well as automatically recognizing a new locomotive (equipped with a Railcom enabled decoder) and automatically assigning an address if you want it to. It also knows what locomotive is in what block if your railroad is set up for that. I used an NCE Powercab for five years before upgrading to the ESU Cab Control system. It was quite an improvement in the amount of voltage and current available which are both adjustable. I immediately noticed that my locomotives were running better at 16VAC and 4 amps than they ran with the NCE system that could barely put 12 volts at the railhead measured with an RMS wide frequency VOM.
I can confirm that Railcom is currently being worked on with DCC-EX, although support will be limited hardware wise as there are a number of caveats with the microcontroller and motor driver hardware requirements to support it. Not sure how soon that will come to the Production release at the moment.
[mention]rray [/mention], If you would start from scratch, would you recommend TCS over Digitrax and NCE at this point in time? Thanks again for all your knowledge sharing! -Tiest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I think so, because of it's feature set, however there is another system coming soon that I want even more by Yet Another MOdel Railroad Company, the YaMoRC Digital YD7110. I was really wanting to get a Digikijs system, but that company failed. Their designer however started YaMoRC Digital and has lots of great products available but their command station is not yet available. If I could not wait, I would just get an NCE Powercab and use it as a standalone programmer when the YaMoRC Digital system was available.
Now that is too funny… I was looking at YaMoRC as its based in The Netherlands which were I was born. As I was browsing the internet came across Karsten and his travels in the world of DCC… Interesting stuff indeed. As always much appreciate your thoughts and advice! Tiest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I have used NCE PowerCab for many years, with JMRI and the USB-interface. For some reason I killed several USB-interfaceas, so I was looking for another option. Another option could be DCC-EX, using an Arduino. I have changed and use this on my layout. Not so easy to start as with the PowerCab, but its cheap and a lot of fun if you like du do your own electronics. DCC-EX Home page: https://dcc-ex.com/ So now I use DCC-EX with JMRI. Check out my homepage: DCC-EX and Platelayer - PlateLayer by Svein-Martin Holt
MRC Advance now has new we can run NCE, TCS and others (accept Digitrax) and LLC. Color screen. While frequently hear of NCE in Z, Digitrax also is yet crickets from MRC. Their Prodigy +10 years newer and has instructions on the back of the ‘hammer-head’ hand-held controller. The NCE Power Cab will be fine for you.
