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| KnuT |
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 Registered Member #27 Joined: Thu Dec 09 2004, 11:00AM: posts: 208 | NYNH&H, don't forget that it was Lenz who "invented" the code that eventually became the DCC standard - and that they let it become "open source" for free. regards KnuT see my blog on The Peavine and Santa Fe: | ||
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| joef |
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   Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PM: posts: 2112 | I agree that the tech coolness factor of LocoNet is not by itself enough to make Digitrax the system of choice for everybody. If killer-reliable wireless with no plug-in required is your top requirement, then CVP's EasyDCC, or perhaps CVP's Lenz wireless throttles would be recommended. If plain english ease-of-use along with the best consisting feature set is your top requirement, then NCE would be recommended. EasyDCC's weakness is as a single supplier there is no price competition, so direct-from-the-vendor pricing is all you get. No price breaks from competition like there is for Digitrax, NCE, or Lenz. Another weakness of EasyDCC is its stationary power-pack command station form factor, also a disadvantage it shares with the Digitrax Zephyr. NCE's weakness is its wireless reception is finicky. You can tune it so that it performs adequately, but at the cost of adding several repeaters at $100 a pop. Also NCE's PowerCab starter system is less scalable (2-4 cabs) than the Digitrax Zephyr (10 cabs). Lenz's weakness is its lack of a true wireless solution (a hole filled with CVP's wireless for Lenz), its user interface is sometimes less-than-intuitive, and its command station consisting is more limited than the other systems. Digitrax's weakness is the need to plug in wireless throttles to acquire locos, and its sometimes geeky user interface. Also, Digitrax's consisting is not as robust as NCE's or EasyDCC's consisting. Digitrax does have the notable advantage that it has the largest share of the DCC market, so you are more likely to find it sold in hobby shops, and it's more likely you know another modeler who also has a Digitrax system. [ Edited Mon Sep 17 2007, 05:58PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting!  In video ... | ||
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| NYNH&H |
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 Registered Member #552 Joined: Mon Nov 13 2006, 02:17PM: posts: 349 | jwils1: I truly do beleive that Digitrax has the best system for all uses. And if a newbie gets this far in the thread, they know more than they ever want to. We are up to page 27 now! Digitrax's system is the only one that scales seamlessly from one guy all of the way to about 100 operators and dozens of boosters, with no significant holes or limitations. I fall right into a hole in NCE's product line, between 2 and 4 radio operators, as in most of the other company's lines as well. It also cheaper than many other systems, due in large part to mass-production and relatively simple components, and the simple yet powerful elegance of LocoNet. Digitrax's wireless plugging in could be a minor annoyance, especially on a modular layout that has no LocoNet bus. They are, however, coming out with two-way throttles by the end of the year that run at 2400mhz. These will not only by substantially less likely to have interference issues, but they will not require a plug-in. I have a post in the Digitrax group (I'm newyorknewhavenandhartford there) about it, and about the FCC filings for the UR92 receiver, which is the primary source of info, as Digitrax isn't saying too much, not even what is publicly available through the FCC. I didn't judge Lenz by their LH90, in fact I found it just fine, just as good as NCE or Digitrax is that regard. I do judge them by the other things. Lenz may have made them to Bachman's specs, or they may just have designed them and had someone else make them, or just provided some of the technology. Either way, Bachman decoders suck. I have heard good and bad things about Lenz decoder, I am happy with my Digitrax decoders, and I suspect they aren't functionally any different from Lenz or NCE decoders unless I were to use Digitrax's transponding. I find its easier to use the same brand of system and decoder to aoid a blame game if theres an issue. Thats another thing that makes me mad about Lenz, their stupid railcom that doesn't seem to do a lot, when Transponding has been around for a while, and works well, from what I can gather. The DT402/ UT42/ DT500 won't have the plug-in requirement. Ah, full radio on a full throttle at last that actually has good range. It will be an industry first, and it will remove having to compromise for what radio features you want. It will have it all. The thing that seems bizarre is that NCE is more $$$ than Digitrax. Digitrax's technology is far superior to any other company's (other than Zimo's, which is $$$$$$$$$$$$ and overengineered), so I would think other manufacturers would compete on price. Any of the other manufacturers could use price as an effective weapon, as, like you said, most people don't need many capabilities of LocoNet and Digitrax's system, but if they are the same price or cheaper, why not? Knut, True, Lenz invented it, but they haven't innovated nearly as well as Digitrax or even NCE. Joe, The killer wireless is going to come by the end of the year from Digitrax. It will far surpass CVP and NCE. Lenz still will win on the versatility prize with the cordless phone stuff, but definitely not on user interface or integration with the system. Someone made a LocoNet board (it was a one-off personal experiment) that interfaced a TV remote with the system, that is the ultimate cheapo remote, especially if it could have like 20 remotes with different codes, each being its own throttle. Cordless phones do have better range than IR though. I think NCE could be the mainstream leader if they went below Digitrax's pricing. Permanent layouts generally don't have wireless, so they could sell very well if they started competing by price. Their system isn't anything close to Digitrax's, but it is a solid basic system (no radio, signalling, detection, turnout control, etc), so at a lower price, they would be giving Digitrax a real run for their money. Digitrax still owns them on radio though. Digitrax's consisting is simple and easy, consisting the way it should be. And, advanced consisting is the same on any system, as the system doesn't do it, since its CV19. The system can pretend to do it, but thats just more confusing and annoying than doing it directly. The thing Digitrax screwed up on consisting is the command station memory, as large layouts slotmax with 30 or 40 big universal consists. Thier interface is clean and simple. While it could use a few tweaks to make it simpler and more utilitarian, its fine now. The rubber buttons though, those things are a POS. I really don't think the throttles and their menus matter that much unless you have to dig through a LOT of menus or something. It only takes a few minutes to learn a throttle, and engineer's throttle are intuitive just like a powerpack. And, the advanced throttles are easy to learn. I am sure I will learn the ProCab quickly when I operate on a friend's layout, I only have used one (a PowerCab) for a few minutes. Digitrax really needs to get with the program on binary programming though, since Lenz and NCE have it. | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PM: posts: 2112 | NYNH&H said ... Digitrax's consisting is simple and easy, consisting the way it should be. And, advanced consisting is the same on any system, as the system doesn't do it, since its CV19. The system can pretend to do it, but thats just more confusing and annoying than doing it directly. How is "Enter lead loco number and direction, rear loco number and direction" confusing and annoying? And then to dial up the consist end I want, I enter the loco number ... how confusing and annoying is that? I can add a loco to the middle of the consist just by pressing consist-add, entering the loco number on one end of the consist, then typing in the new loco and direction to add it in. I don't care one wit what number got put into CV19, nor should I ever have to care. All I care is I can dial up either end of the consist and all the functions on all the locos in the consist work like I expect. Sweet!  Do you care what numbers get entered into CV17 and CV18 when you use a long address? No ... some story with CV19. If the system is designed properly, you will never even have to care what goes into CV19, the same way you never care what's actually in CV17 and 18. You just want to type in the loco number and crank up the throttle and have the loco with that number on the cab respond. And that's what NCE does, far better than any of the other DCC systems at the moment. [ Edited Mon Sep 17 2007, 09:48PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| Denny |
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  Registered Member #21 Joined: Thu Dec 09 2004, 07:20AM: posts: 404 | joef said ... How is "Enter lead loco number and direction, rear loco number and direction" confusing and annoying? And then to dial up the consist end I want, I enter the loco number ... how confusing and annoying is that? Joe, sorry for bothering with this question - I already asked it on this page- but it seems you didn't see it  Does the NCE advanced consist let an operator select the (CV1) address of both the front or rear loco and get a double-headed consist behavior? So, no more need to manually set up a double-headed consist like you showed in vol.3 DVD? thanks Denny Saronno, VA - Italy http://www.sp-coastline.com | ||
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| Jack W. Lajoie |
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 Registered Member #679 Joined: Fri Jul 20 2007, 10:53AM: posts: 27 | joef said ... I don't care one wit what number got put into CV19, nor should I ever have to care. All I care is I can dial up either end of the consist and all the functions on all the locos in the consist work like I expect. Sweet! Do you care what numbers get entered into CV17 and CV18 when you use a long address? No ... some story with CV19. If the system is designed properly, you will never even have to care what goes into CV19, the same way you never care what's actually in CV17 and 18. You just want to type in the loco number and crank up the throttle and have the loco with that number on the cab respond. While not an expert, I like to know what goes on at the bits level of CV. I care about what goes on with CV17 and CV18 and use direct programming of these CV when programming a sound decodered loco, easy fast and foolproof. I also care about what goes on with CV19, CV21 and CV22 in an advance consist. [ Edited Tue Sep 18 2007, 10:14AM ] Jack W. | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PM: posts: 2112 | Denny: The short answer is yes, the NCE advanced consist lets you select the loco address as the consist. You can select the loco number of either end and that end becomes the front. It works just like the double-ended consists in video 3, except only better! Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| bobhayes |
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 Registered Member #114 Joined: Fri Feb 04 2005, 07:35PM: posts: 67 | FWIW, the only advantage I can see for advanced consisting is the ability to select either end of a consist as the controlling unit. The first time I operated on Joe's layout, I was the engineer on the Dole Turn. After selecting the unit that was facing toward Dillard as the lead unit, I controlled the direction of the whole consist by changing the direction of that unit. When the train ran to Dillard, the controlling unit was at the front, but coming back to Roseburg, it was on the rear of the consist. It didn't matter to me whether it was running foreward or backward as long as the consist was going in the direction I wanted it to. When I get an engine terminal built, I want to be able to make up engine consists on the fly, based on how many cars are going to be in the train, rather than have to use whatever is already made up. Suppose I have 2 cars that need to go to Dillard, but the only motive power in Roseburg is a 3 unit lash up. Wouldn't it be better to use one engine to move those two cars instead of three? And, it seems to me, it would be easier to build a consist by selecting loco A and adding loco B, and if neccessary, add loco C, and maybe loco D, etc., rather then selecting loco A, calling it the front unit, selecting loco D, and calling it the rear unit, and then adding B and/or C. It would have been nice to have been able break up the consist so as to have two seperate units working Dillard, maybe one on each end. But, how do you break up that NCE consist? Bob Hayes | ||
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| NYNH&H |
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| Registered Member #552 Joined: Mon Nov 13 2006, 02:17PM: posts: 349 | Joe, NCE's system is annoying because it plays tricks behind the user's back with advanced consisting. The first thing is, the system should NOT be programming a decoder unless the user gives it a CV and a value, either in hex, deimal, or binary format. That way, the user knows what the heck is going on. The second is that NCE reprograms CV19 without the user knowing what that value actually IS, and thus, it is storing the information in the command station to reference by decoder address. This method is good if and only if universal consisting is used. That way, if the system was reset, or the locos moved from one layout to another, you would still know what address to grab the locos at. If you take a consist from an NCE layout to another layout, you have to remeber to se-consist the locos, and then re-consist them when you come back. If you won't be able to address the locos, as you don't know their consist address. As for double-ended functions, advanced consisting can do that WITHOUT the system interfering. Also, advanced consisting is not supported by all decoder, but universal is. The only time unverisal consisting becomes undesireable is on the largest of layouts where the 8kbps bandwidth gets stretched thin, and in that case, any system works just fine, as you can use CV19 to do the consisting, the correct way. Yes I do care, and I AND ONLY I should EVER change a value in one of my decoders, a system should not be doing it behind my back, not bothering to tell me what it is doing to my decoders. I agree Digitrax's universal consisting should be double-ended for functions, but you can overcome that by using advanced consisting with an address different from that of any of the locos in the consist, and then using that address for speed, and the lead loco's address for functions if desired. Its just not something that really matters. Digitrax's consisting is incredibly straight forward and simple, even if it is not as flexible in direction as the bizarre trickery that NCE uses. Why would you add the middle locos later? That makes no sense, they should be added to the consist in order, there is another weird part about NCE's solution. Jack, Well said. EDIT: Typo [ Edited Tue Sep 18 2007, 03:03PM ] | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PM: posts: 2112 | Interesting comment on CV17 and CV18. I bet if you poll a room full of DCC users at a national convention you won't find anyone (except maybe one person if you're lucky) who can tell you the formula to compute the values of CV17 and CV18 for a given long address. Now, quick, without looking it up, what is the formula? If I have a loco numbered 4408, what do I put into CV17 and CV18 as the long address bytes? It takes some less-than-intuitive gyrations to compute the values. That's what computers are good at -- computing. And that's why I prefer to let them worry about the values. With DecoderPro, I can just "clicky-clicky" with my mouse the settings I want, and heck if I know what bit got fiddled in CV-whatever to make the setting I wanted. Sure I can look it up in the manual and figure it out -- but why bother? DecoderPro and my NCE system makes it really easy to not have to care -- so I don't. I have other more important things to be concerned about than knowing what got plugged into CV17 and 18 for my loco's long address of 4408. And for what its worth, NCE does let you set the consist address if you want, or you can take the default and NCE will just pick the next available number. I always set mine to the last two digits of the lead loco number just so it's easy to remember in case I ever do need it. So far I haven't. And if I ever do get desperate, I can always put the loco on the programming track and read the value in CV19. Reading one CV's value is no big deal. [ Edited Tue Sep 18 2007, 05:14PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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