Par for Newquay

Thanks Iain, Andy - I appreciate your advice. So: I will try to be patient :-)))

Thankyou Iain - swapping from black to dark blue as it were is definitely an option, but I saw at the weekend: a few of the products I would need are marked "delayed" or "cancelled" right now which is a worry, a few months ago they all said "expected in Q3" I already felt there was a bit of a risk to dealing with a new player in the market (I know there is design continuity, I just mean - new commercial entity) the delays and cancellations on the supply side are making me feel quite nervous.

Hi Folks I am building my dream layout, not very fast due to life-in-general, about 3 years in now and 15% complete. Long enough anyhow for Digikeijs to have gone bankrupt after I trialled their stuff, learnt how to use it and selected them as my DCC kit supplier ;-) Must have invested around £600 [1 x DR5000, 2 x DR5033 boosters, 3 x DR4018 switch units and 3 x DR5088RC, those fab 16+1 occupancy-with-Railcon miracle boxes that no one else seems to come close to at the same price point. And happily - it has all been working just fine for me, on it's own and through iTrain. But this is nowhere near enough kit for me finish the dream. So now I will need to a) mix/match with other manufacturer's stuff b) find some impossible to find secondhand Digikeijs to top up with or c) recycle the lovely black boxes and start over. I had an eye on what Yamorc were doing over the summer but looks like they have over-promised a bit supply-wise. So: what would you do next if you were me? Thanks in advance for any pearls

Hi Folks Help needed from the DCC gurus please...! *** Newbie alert *** I'm considering how to implement DCC on my first layout in 40 years (OO). This layout looks great in XTrkCAD although I haven't actually built anything yet. Still working on the architecture... Here's what I think I want to do: Deliver track power and throttle data on one bus, using 3 distinct power districts to get some fault tolerance in Deliver power to accessories separately from the track, same reason And here is where I am getting confused; How to get the DCC signal to accessories? I have read about the CAN bus which supposedly can separate both the power and the data for accessories... but... i) Are there any switch decoders out there which can actually use it ... ? ii) One of the benefits cited is to "reduce congestion on the throttle bus" by keeping any comms with accessories off it. Is that a real problem, though - how big does your layout have to be before you notice... what would you notice, if your throttle bus was congested? And would a DCC control center be clever enough anyway to route instructions down the right bus when it has a choice of two...? iii) Another of the benefits cited is that CAN bus is bi-directional, so as well as telling your points and signals what to do they can apparently send information back... When is that useful...? Anybody doing it? iv) If CAN bus is just too difficult, what could I do instead...? Many thanks in advance for your advice.

Thanks everyone for your opinions and also the many words of welcome too, really appreciated that.

Back to the hobby after 40 years away, the PECO catalogue looks pretty much the same to me and the price list too, although the numbers got bigger. Can anyone help? If I wanted to buy ready made OO electrofrog turnouts *without* having to spend any time adding "recommended modifications to improve reliability over time" - what options do I have (other than crowd-funding a start-up or calling in a favour from Elon Musk) Thanks for any wise words !