Junctionmad

I wouldn't dream of hand drawing a track plan , far too easy to do a Cyril Freezer on it and end up with a designs that cant be built in the space Computer modelling also ensures you dont have kinks and poor geometry

yes and the common ones mentioned , are a minimum of 22AWG , which is around 16/0.2 and the most common ones , ie in the auto factors are typically a minimum of 18AWG . by and large the series is not suitable for a large bus wire and a small dropper wire , better versions are quite expensive at around 50p each and even they don't have the range to 24AWG ( 7/0.2)

Guys , the great thing about standards , is there are so many to choose from

I tend to limit power districts to a baseboard rather then a given track seqment as I don’t want to add extra inter baseboard dcc feeds

It doesn’t work great as it screws up the IDC mechanism and In some cases cut the cable remember it’s an IDC process. The idea is a cold weld between the displacement knife and the strands of the cable

They tend to be “ Ok” where the wire diameter is within the stated spec of the connector. They don’t work so will if you stray outside that. Unfortunately on model railways this is often done , where the dropper wires is 7/0.2 or 17/0.2 stranded and is too small to hold reliably.

Seemingly we need to get the T-55 standard excommunicated by the Catholic Church ,! . These days that seems a difficult thing to do. I suggest Martin nail a copy of said standard on the door of a suitable nearby parish church as a start ! I mean it worked once before

The actual issue is that most people simply overestimate the amount of driving they normally do. The issue for or against EVs isn’t about “ edge “ cases. Hybrids are largely a waste of money , inefficient in having two engines and insufficient space for any sort of capable battery. Current EVs can deliver 400km or more , this is way more then most people’s needs.

1N4001 or any 1N400x series

Have you flyback diodes on the point motors. It sounds like the inductive spike is coupling into the power line

Yes it will have two panels

You could “ simulate “ three aspect operation , by using timing modules , ie on detecting a passing train the timer shows red , then after a time , yellow then green . While this will fall down of the train leaves the block after the signal and then stops

There is a valid point where dcc is used to control things like points and signals. I don’t like or use dcc ever for that but block detection and train identification generally requires the traction control to be operational to be much use so Railcom ( for example ) doesn’t mean the signalling or point control has to be done with dcc at all

The only issue with channel 1 only is two loco per section can’t be identified

Just keep an eye on them. Give them a good tug when you connect them

just be careful using "suitcase " connectors, they are rated for a quite restricted diameter of cable and smaller cable isnt held well and can fall out over time .

Railcom , uses the track and the DCC traction wiring to get the data back to the Railcom decoder ( from the on board loco encoder ) , from the decoder onwards , its entirely separate from the DCC system . whats the advantage in having a separate feed from the track upto the point of decoding . I see no specific engineering advantage

I would endorse the entry level Zimo decoders as well. Great decoders, good motor control and many advanced functions. easily the best entry level range imho

depending , if its B-Bus connected the booster will inform the Z21 and everything is shut down , I dont know if you can isolate the short to the booster

I must offer my reply here ( given the OP has equally attacked me " the what are you frightened of comments ") what annoyed me about this thread , is not the OPs project. Its his attack on DCC using quite frankly spurious technical comments that makes the comparisons technically ridiculous and I note that he has avoid replying in any detail to those specific issues for example one of my comments was mentioned in relation to my comment about 128 versus 1024 speed steps Any engineer worth his or her salt making this comparison will know that any model railway motor simply cant " resolve "such tiny voltagesteps into any appreciable control benefit , in fact it can hardly resolve 28 speed steps Hence my robust technical retort "Your knowledge of signalling and absolute block is very limited. " was based entirely on the OPs rather ridiculous comments about absolute block , AND , I went on to provide concrete examples of multiple locos/trains in a block as for my comment "what you says is largely nonsense for 2.4ghz solutions " I am being factually correct , here , what the OP claimed is quite frankly compete nonsense in 2.4Ghz , which is the spectrum where the ESP32 operates ( and I have developed solutions for the ESP32 and I know how it works ) I have 30 years of work in Wifi and embedded systems and I dislike when someone dismisses comments by using buzzwords, " technical hand waving " and references to enterprise solutions that have no applicability As I said , in all honestly , I have no problem with the OP coming here are outlining his particular model railway control solution and as I said , I wish him well in his endeavours . I and well aware that many creators of solutions tend to get over committed to the brilliance of their creation , and see everything else as inferior. However either "DDC" stands on its own two feet or it doesn't . Simply lambasting DCC, on very spurious technical grounds ( the classic one is the AC->DC->AC criticism ) simply opens you to ridicule , which he has received from several knowledgeable contributors

yes but if you vary the regulated voltage ( by using the concept of a " controlling current ") , how do you know the voltage drop so delivered at the command station , you would have to have a very tightly calibrated shunt regulator The next issue you have is no shunt regulator is perfect , it has an output impedance , Hence you will get inaccuracies in the voltage regulation , Then you have the overall noise floor In order to resolve what are very small changes in resistance , you need to have very accurate known voltages , The command station isnt an issue as you can measure in realtime , but the scheme you suggest has no way of accurately reporting the shunt voltage drop in the same manner I haven't worked through the real life numbers , but I suspect the % variability in voltage will be greater the % change in resistivity This leaves aside issues like unexpected ( and unknown ) changes in track resistivity , due to variations in metal , the presence of fishplates, potential unexpected return paths etc as I said previously, the theory is correct , however I dont see any real life application working without considerable circuit sophistication and the fact is , it would be easier to simply relay the voltage drop experienced in motor circuit back via some form digital coding .

Hang on , are we talking about a conventional shunt regulator , a shunt regulator maintains a constant voltage across it not a constant current

In real life this system can’t maintain an accurate known voltage drop which would need to be millivolt stable the effect of a finite output impedance of the regulator would mean that such a voltage would vary at different parts of the load line and to attempt to mitigate that , you’d have to have a 10x or more current through the regulator as opposed to the motor leading to major inefficiencies

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good practice dcc needs no more wires /droppers then good practice DC. The DCC signal has no influence on wiring topologies. hence “ DDC” will not be be better or worse then existing systems equally conventional track side DC can and does offer momentum effects and dcc offers all the advantages of on loco control to that end “ DDC” brings very little new to the party , in track control format it merely duplicated existing DC functionality in an arguably more complex fashion and in its future in-loco mode merely brings what DCC already has. dcc biggest advantage is its standardisation, allowing mix and match. Wi-Fi and Bluetooths biggest issue is the corresponding lack of such standards a useful initiative would be a Wi-Fi to dcc decoder allowing Wi-Fi signalling to be back fitted to dcc locos however this overlooks the fact that while Wi-Fi is technically superior to dcc , it’ doesn’t really bring any added value to a model railway, while introducing incompatibilities and technical complexities for no real gain. Conventional DC remains an option because it’s cheap , easily understood by the non technical and well supported by documentation and learning aids dcc is well out in front in worldwide usage over dc , the poll on rnweb a few years again showed the same here ) it offers a standardised method of cab control , loco sound , and optionally feedback at quite low costs. Fire away , but don’t be blinded as to what you are developing , it’s merely a peculiar form of DC largely to satisfy your own technical interests. it brings very minor features to bear on ordinary model layouts.