Musings on Rapido

[Shovelto]

You didn't Phil. Sorry should have made it clear that was a reference to Jason's post in #22, where he is looking for people to upgrade to DCC because of all the advantages it has to offer. I don't dispute that and for some DCC is the way forward, I was just trying to point out that for others DC has advantages. It's horses for courses and as long as models continue to be supplied with capability for either then I'm happy. It's not a done deal that people should upgrade to DCC as a matter of course though

In fact you can have the best of both worlds if you want it. In my model world I have older trains running automatically on DC, as a small part of an Austrian village whilst in the rest of the world there a completely independent DCC part where I can run (play with?) newer sound and other gadget equipped stuff.

It's not accurate in terms of any known real life railway, it is just inspired by things I like

[ruggedpeak]

My childhood collection of Airfix, Lima and Hornby models remain fully compatible with 12v of electricty nearly 40 years after I bought them, and with the locos I buy today. Will the proponents of DCC guarantee their customers that their DCC products will remain fully compatible with whatever control systems exist in 10, 20 or more years?

 

Interestingly only Hornby have really innovated to drive down the cost of the digital concept with TTS, although I note DCC Concepts have also realised that prices must fall for it to become mainstream. If people want DCC to be the mainstream then make it affordable. That's where the market is. £100+ for chip and sound on top of locos over £100 isn't sustainable for anything more than a niche market. TTS should be available as plug and play - maybe Hornby could help its financial situation by either licencing the TTS or selling the chips separately. The model rail industry as a whole has to up its game around this area, innovate, ensure DCC is user friendly and affordable if it really wants it to be mainstream. This is basic marketing, going from 25% to 75% DCC will require prices to come down and an effective offering put in front of customers.

 

In terms of the use of small radius curves, the UK market is very different to the North American one for model trains in my view. Any company dependent on large radius curves to operate its products may find its market limited by the realities of UK housing trends for the foreseeable future.

[PaulRhB]

Yep the NMRA standard isn't treated like Microsoft or Apple software. It's easy to expand but the core remains there and it's compatible with 1970's DC controllers I have

[MJI]

Where in my post did I say you had to buy DCC?

 

The 1990s Gaugemaster handheld is a DC controller. I'm not sure there was much DCC then. And I'm a bit of a ludite as far as control is concerned. Turn the knob and the train goes exactly as you are looking for apparently.

 

My point was, since I obviously wasn't clear enough, that you can't expect the same results from worn out 1960s technology that you get from something a bit more modern. Anyone unwilling to move to a slightly more modern DC controller isn't likely to go for full fat DCC no matter what people tell them.

 

Controllers.

 

Resistance mats ones can go to recycling. (Including Duettes YUK!)

 

Variable transformers still seem to work well, used modern and 1960s stuff with one oncluding an RG4. (Safety Minor in my case)

 

My first electronic controller is good with older stuff but unusable with RG4. (The H&M jobbie)

 

Gaugemaster D is a pretty good controller now.

[MJI]

Costs

 

40 motors to do, with a few on the way.

 

Ranging from RG4 to Triang via heavy motors from Heljan and lots of pancakes.

 

£15 average say - £600 plus controllers

[Steven B]

As American's appear to have embraced DCC much more than us British, I have to ask myself what they did with all their old models? Surely just like many of us, they will have had large fleets of DC locos. Were they all consigned to the scrap yard to be replaced with newer, better, DCC ready/fitted locos or have their owners just bitten the bullet and paid for the decoders.

 

If you've got a large DC layout, all wired up and running then there isn't much point in switching to DCC. However, if starting again for what ever reason, making the change becomes a possibility. Starting from scratch with a new layout there's no way you'll have enough track working at anyone time for several weeks/months/years to provide enough space to run the dozens of locos many of us have. In this case you fit decoders to the most useful and/or your favourite locos first and gradually work through your fleet as and when track space and funds allow.

 

 

 

Happy modelling.

 

Steven B.

[Talltim]

On the contrary: adjustments are minimal! Short-circuit all diodes and remove all capacitors from the track, replace the DC controller with a DCC system and presto, you're off

 

Too many times DCC is associated with fully automated PC-control, but that's plain wrong. Buy any DCC starter set, does it come with a fully automated PC controlled layout? No, indeed it doesn't So why should yours?

Fitting the DCC decoders is a far larger jobs than preparing the layout.

[jonklein611]

As American's appear to have embraced DCC much more than us British, I have to ask myself what they did with all their old models? Surely just like many of us, they will have had large fleets of DC locos. Were they all consigned to the scrap yard to be replaced with newer, better, DCC ready/fitted locos or have their owners just bitten the bullet and paid for the decoders.

 

If you've got a large DC layout, all wired up and running then there isn't much point in switching to DCC. However, if starting again for what ever reason, making the change becomes a possibility. Starting from scratch with a new layout there's no way you'll have enough track working at anyone time for several weeks/months/years to provide enough space to run the dozens of locos many of us have. In this case you fit decoders to the most useful and/or your favourite locos first and gradually work through your fleet as and when track space and funds allow.

 

 

 

Happy modelling.

 

Steven B.

 

Most of us slowly converted older locos.  I had a small fleet, and it was easy to convert a few at a time.  Buy a pack of 6 decoders, install, wait for budget to recover, wash, rinse, repeat.  A few DCC manufactures made "conversion" kits for various locos (board replacements, or special wiring harnesses).  Anything made since around 2000ish has at least an 8 pin plug in it, so it became even easier.

[autocoach]

The next wave of technology is coming in 1-5 years. Bluetooth, micro-radio, WiFi direct communication from a hand held device (phone or notepad) to the locomotive. Your choice of rail power source would be either a dc throttle or DCC power source.  But control of the locomotive will not come through the rails at all and blocks will not matter except for isolating shorts during construction. Any DC locomotive where you could get to the wiring would be converted with a simple splice. DCC with a compatible plug would be even easier. Existing DCC decoders may be used along with communications hardware/software but there will be no need for base stations. Or standards based DCC may disappear over time and be replaced by proprietary communications protocols between the hand held device and locomotive receiver.

 

Or maybe there will be a breakthrough in battery size for OO/HO and there no need for any power on the rails (except maybe a battery recharge track). 

 

Sure there will be resistance (an electrical joke?) just as there has been from DC to DCC. But wiring in the future won't matter. Just a simple two wire bus connecting constant power source to feeders until the power storage solution is small enough for a dead rail sound equipped Hornby Peckett. And once we get that small N scale will be possible.

Edited May 28, 2016 by autocoach

[Revolution Ben]

Hi Ken,

 

That's interesting.  I think you are right in much of what you say about wireless control but I am not sure about the "battery breakthrough."

 

We are used to batteries that last a long time in phones, but these are powering electronics and visual displays that are increasingly optimised to draw less power.  Actually storing enough power to create physical movement is not trivial.  Even drones, which are just rotating lightweight fans in air, have a relatively short operating time.

 

What I would expect as the next stage would be some kind of hybrid.  The loco would be battery powered, but the battery would, at the same time as powering the loco, be recharging via power from the track.  This could get it past dead spots.  If the batteries were efficient enough to keep trains moving further than the length of a crossover then that would simplify wiring a lot as points could just be left dead - with straight track only providing recharge power.  

 

If the battery develops a memory and loses efficiency it could be easily swapped out.

 

As battery performance does increase, and wireless charging becomes more commonplace, it may even be that batteries could be "charged" by an induction loop next to, say, a TMD fuelling point, meaning that our model locos have to "refuel" just like the real thing.  Our control systems could also display the remaining charge - like mobile phones - so we can see when our locos need "refuelling."

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Ben A

[No Decorum]

I’m not so sure. Unless someone invents a battery which doesn’t lose power, it won’t be possible to haul a neglected loco out of its box and run it straight away. Then, supposing you have been happily playing (for example) with an LMS stud and take it into your head to have a play with your dozen LNER locos, it will take a lot of time to charge the lot. Not much fun, I should imagine. Picking up power from the track to feed the battery is a possibility but I can’t see much advantage over stay-alive capacitors.

 

There is, however, a gap which could be filled. The big bugbear in DCC sound is the number of non-standardised sounds. Touch screens have their limitations – I saw a demonstration video of a controller with a beautiful full-colour screen but the operator prodded the thing three times before he got a response. In addition to that, there is no tactile feedback with such screens and it is necessary to look at the screen to see where to jab it.

 

I used Dynamis for years and was quite pleased with it until the roster on my second handset was full. So I moved to NCE. I like the movement controls: a step up and a step down button, a multi-step up and a multi-step down button plus a roller. Many handhelds using a knob need two hands but NCE’s roller can be operated with one hand whilst watching the locomotive. However, what would appeal to me would be function buttons separated by a plastic grid, or with shapes which enable a button to be felt separately from its neighbours, but with each button lit when it’s on. The buttons should also be tactile, with a positive action and they should be programmable. Mobile phone keypads are designed to look flashy and would be, by and large, a poor model to follow.

 

Hornby’s Railmaster is part way to a solution, so is Railpro. Railpro is a radio control system. I can see no advantage in radio control either but the design of the handset is intriguing. http://www.ringengineering.com/index.html

 

None of this appears to be outside the scope of current technology.

[jjb1970]

There is an awful lot of money being poured into battery technologies and if some of the ideas that researchers are playing with are commercialised then it will transform how the world thinks about batteries and result in profound changes to many things. The big question of course is will impressive R&D be successfully commercialised, however given the funding being thrown at these ideas by the automotive and personal device sectors it is entirely possible that we could see a technological revolution. And it is not just about model trains, up to now the idea of battery trains or hybrid trains has been something of a gimmick suitable for certain specialised applications or green wash technology demonstration projects however it is possible that batteries could make battery powered trains practical for general use.

[mikeharvey22]

Battery power is as much an issue for full size transport as for our model trains. A huge amount of this tiny Vienna City bus is taken up with batteries and control equipment. The pantograph connects to a short length of trolley wire at the terminus to recharge/top up the batteries. I applaud the intention of running a non-polluting bus in Vienna's central area where other surface transport cannot venture, but this solution seems to be extraordinarily expensive.

 

[/url]">​

 

Full gen here.

 

http://www.clean-fleets.eu/fileadmin/files/Clean_Fleets_case_study__Vienna_-_Final.pdf

Edited May 28, 2016 by mikeharvey22

[dibber25]

...and all because Jason mentioned DCC!!

[jjb1970]

I know how much the fuel cell package cost for the TfL Hydrogen buses, I'm not sure whether it is in the public domain or not but suffice to say that you wouldn't have selected the technology based on any rational business case. Unfortunately green technology is still generally not the most cost effective option in strict financial terms however the technologies are improving and the financial cases do look a bit better with each new generation. Certainly electric cars are approaching a point where they are starting to look attractive as more than a bit of greenwash, partcicularly some of the petrol - electric range extender models like the Golf GTE.

[JSpencer]

There is an awful lot of money being poured into battery technologies and if some of the ideas that researchers are playing with are commercialised then it will transform how the world thinks about batteries and result in profound changes to many things. The big question of course is will impressive R&D be successfully commercialised, however given the funding being thrown at these ideas by the automotive and personal device sectors it is entirely possible that we could see a technological revolution. And it is not just about model trains, up to now the idea of battery trains or hybrid trains has been something of a gimmick suitable for certain specialised applications or green wash technology demonstration projects however it is possible that batteries could make battery powered trains practical for general use.

 

The problem with batteries is that they are heavy and life expectancy is quite short. They also rot (some modern versions push this to the extreme but I doubt it could be pushed to the life of our models which in many instances is measured in decades). The more sophisticated batteries are expensive too so do we really need them in a model in constant contact with rails?

I can see DCC chips appearing that are compatible with DCC control through wireless or radios happening, however the cost needs to come down, maybe the technology needs to be pushed into other control areas like cars, small RC planes etc. whereby masses can be produced to really bring prices down.

 

I personally have far too many old (? pre 2000 ?) locomotives which I can perfectly control under normal DC. I see little point in the effort and time to convert them. I also see little point in plain sound-less DCC. However I have others, much more recent in nature converted to DCC sound. The layout's switching is designed to allow any one of 6 controlers control any part of any section in any circuit. So switching sections of layout between DC and DCC and vice versa is easy as the train progresses. I can operate a sound loco to full effect with a plain DC following up one section behind or vice versa.

Often the loco shed will have a mix of DC and DCC sound models. The sound models (particulary steam) can busily simmer as if heating up in the yard while the DC models play dead. I have two DC models fitted with DC sound, they really cannot compete. 

[No Decorum]

I can see DCC chips appearing that are compatible with DCC control through wireless or radios happening

Like this?

 

http://www.ringengineering.com/RailProVideosPage.htm

[Supaned]

Battery power is as much an issue for full size transport as for our model trains. A huge amount of this tiny Vienna City bus is taken up with batteries and control equipment. The pantograph connects to a short length of trolley wire at the terminus to recharge/top up the batteries. I applaud the intention of running a non-polluting bus in Vienna's central area where other surface transport cannot venture, but this solution seems to be extraordinarily expensive.

 

[/url]">​

 

Full gen here.

 

http://www.clean-fleets.eu/fileadmin/files/Clean_Fleets_case_study__Vienna_-_Final.pdf

Not especially - I'm sure the technology already existed for a battery powered bus , the only difference was that instead of a plug and lead , the charger was a pantograph. The short section of OLE is a tap off the adjacent tramline , so bar a few metres of wire and supports , the infrastructure was already in place.

[96701]

I know how much the fuel cell package cost for the TfL Hydrogen buses, I'm not sure whether it is in the public domain or not but suffice to say that you wouldn't have selected the technology based on any rational business case. Unfortunately green technology is still generally not the most cost effective option in strict financial terms however the technologies are improving and the financial cases do look a bit better with each new generation. Certainly electric cars are approaching a point where they are starting to look attractive as more than a bit of greenwash, partcicularly some of the petrol - electric range extender models like the Golf GTE.

The technologies can improve more quickly by trials such as those.

[jjb1970]

The technologies can improve more quickly by trials such as those.

I agree. Technologies improve and costs are lowered with increasing adoption and commercialisation.

 

On batteries, the arguments tend to be framed with reference to existing battery technologies, if some of the technologies in development are successfully commercialised (I know that is a big "if") then we will see a technical revolution and older batteries will look as obsolete as steam locomotives did relative to diesel and electric locomotives, if anything more obsolete.

[adb968008]

I don't think batteries are the issue, it's the charging time. 

 

With model airplanes you can get cheap battery packs (50p each) and recharge them in an hour via USB.. bit of a faff but it works.

 

My little one is currently obsessed by "hex bug nano"... this is a 1" insect that walks at random round your house.. (don't ask).

 

the technology is a 1cm sq motor with a baffle shape on the axle which makes it wobble (And hence the rubber legs look like they are walking and off it goes) and its got some power for it's size....

It runs off an  AG12 watch battery... goes for an hour (usually under a table/chair or cupboard where it makes a noise until it's rescued).

 

Battery cost me £1.50 for 30 at the local DIY (5p each).

it could be powerful enough to run an n gauge locomotive.. now who runs a loco for an hour non-stop ?

(Didn't Hornby have a few  Battery powered locos for a while in the 70s ?)

 

Possible solutions:

a. so make it efficient enough in watt consumption that it doesn't matter the cost of the battery (a-la hex bug nano)

b. faster chargers (Person who domesticates this technology will be a billionaire)

c. low cost rechargeable batteries / battery banks so a set up of spares is easily available at a low enough cost. (like model airplanes)

 

the other option is go down the Wilesco route, adding Brake control. then it's totally real.

Edited June 13, 2016 by adb968008

[newbryford]

All we need to do is make this fit a 00 model.

 

Where we're going, we don't need batteries.....

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Martin_R]

All we need to do is make this fit a 00 model.

 

Where we're going, we don't need batteries.....

 

Cheers,

Mick

It would probably be very good as a weed killer unit...... I wonder if would qualify as a low emission loco?

[Ozexpatriate]

I was saddened to see in the latest US Rapido newsletter that Mike McGratten has succumbed to cancer.

 

Jason, thank you for sharing, at least part of your eulogy for your employee, friend and confidant.

 

The newsletter is available here.

 

N scale fans (everyone really) can participate in a tribute to Mike here and benefit his young son's future education.  A fun blog by Mike about a boxcar visiting other layouts and the transitions inflicted on it can be found in The Adventures of Littl' Puddy. The creativity and skill of the modellers who hosted "Littl' Puddy" is quite engaging.

Edited June 17, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[jonklein611]

I was saddened to see in the latest US Rapido newsletter that Mike McGratten has succumbed to cancer.

 

Jason, thank you for sharing, at least part of your eulogy for your employee, friend and confidant.

 

The newsletter is available here.

 

N scale fans (everyone really) can participate in a tribute to Mike here and benefit his young son's future education.  A fun blog by Mike about a boxcar visiting other layouts and the transitions inflicted on it can be found in The Adventures of Littl' Puddy. The creativity and skill of the modellers who hosted "Littl' Puddy" is quite engaging.

 

Also, not sure if you guys saw in the background of this shot: