DCC Way Forward

[Harlequin]

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned Megapoints controller boards for MTBs:

https://megapointscontrollers.co.uk/product/mtb_motor_driver/?v=79cba1185463

 

(I haven't done the maths on cost per turnout.)

 

[Nigelcliffe]

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned Megapoints controller boards for MTBs:

https://megapointscontrollers.co.uk/product/mtb_motor_driver/?v=79cba1185463

 

(I haven't done the maths on cost per turnout.)

 

 

Expensive.   The board itself doesn't talk to DCC (or anything else) on its own.  You've got to buy the board, and another board before it does anything.     Control board £38, DCC module £34 ,  total £72 to control six motors, or £12 per motor control circuit, which is twice the price of various commercial control options discussed earlier.    (With a bit of reading the manuals and putting 1+1 together, one may get a single DCC module to control two of the MPB boards, which would reduce the price, but still remains much more expensive than other commercial options).

It doesn't seem a sane way to go when wanting to control things from an ECoS.

 

 

Megapoints stuff is generally fine if used as intended, but this set of requirements leads to putting square-pegs into round holes.    

 

[Harlequin]

8 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

Expensive.   The board itself doesn't talk to DCC (or anything else) on its own.  You've got to buy the board, and another board before it does anything.     Control board £38, DCC module £34 ,  total £72 to control six motors, or £12 per motor control circuit, which is twice the price of various commercial control options discussed earlier.    (With a bit of reading the manuals and putting 1+1 together, one may get a single DCC module to control two of the MPB boards, which would reduce the price, but still remains much more expensive than other commercial options).

It doesn't seem a sane way to go when wanting to control things from an ECoS.

 

 

Megapoints stuff is generally fine if used as intended, but this set of requirements leads to putting square-pegs into round holes.    

 

I believe that the control boards can be daisy-chained onto the network and up to 192 motors can be addressed individually.

So if you have many turnouts to control that ameliorates the costs even further.

 

[Nigelcliffe]

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

I believe that the control boards can be daisy-chained onto the network and up to 192 motors can be addressed individually.

So if you have many turnouts to control that ameliorates the costs even further.

 

Only with yet more additional hardware.    I can't see it is a sane way to go for this problem.    It may be sensible if there already is already servo control using the Megapoints architecture, and thus it is an addition to an existing system. 

 

For the requirement, which was control from the ECoS whose output is DCC:   
Multipanel processor board (the 192 output concentrator) £88. 
DCC module £34. 
Then £38 for a controller for six MTB motors thereafter.  

Doing a quick bit of maths, deciding when it "costs in" to use the MultiPanel processor board for this combination:  given each DCC module costs £34, then two are £68 and three are £102 (but still cheaper, because £88+£34 is more than £102!).   

A MultiPanel processor board costs in if needing more than 36 MTB motors controlled this way (rather than one DCC module for each pair of MTB motor driver boards).   But, it remains expensive per motor controller, for 48 turnouts it's (£88+£34+(8*£38))=£426, or £8.88 per turnout controller.  At all 192 turnouts, its £88+£34+(32*£38) = £1,338 or £6.97 per turnout controller.  

The price is more per turnout controlled, and is more complicate to implement than other cheaper solutions presented earlier. 

 

I repeat the observation of trying to put square pegs into round holes.  

 

 

( I'm currently reasonably up-to-date on specifying Megapoints components, as a layout I'm working on is using them, and we're trying to optimise component cost, wiring complexity and long term ease of maintenance ). 

 

 

- Nigel

[Penrhos1920]

On 10/08/2023 at 09:18, Harlequin said:

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned Megapoints controller boards for MTBs:

https://megapointscontrollers.co.uk/product/mtb_motor_driver/?v=79cba1185463

 

(I haven't done the maths on cost per turnout.)

 

 

I’d be concerned that they might not be around in 10 years time as it’s a one man band.

[Nigelcliffe]

10 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

I’d be concerned that they might not be around in 10 years time as it’s a one man band.

 

That's the case for much of the model railway supply market.  Even quite a few "big" players who employ staff are dependent on one or maybe two key people, when they go there is no product.

 

 

 

 

[melmerby]

44 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

That's the case for much of the model railway supply market.  Even quite a few "big" players who employ staff are dependent on one or maybe two key people, when they go there is no product.

 

Digikeijs

[Crosland]

17 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

I’d be concerned that they might not be around in 10 years time as it’s a one man band.

 

I'm still here almost 20 years on :) I do (kind of) have a succession plan should it come to that.

 

Still (occasionally) supporting original products.

 

Andrew Crosland

sprog-dcc.co.uk

[Jon Harbour]

I think the DCC-EX option based on an Arduino with the new EX‑MotorShield8874 is well worth a look. 2 x 5A outputs - potentially one for the track bus and the other for the accessory bus. Link a PCA 9685 to the Arduino and you can control 16 servos to control points - you can daisy-chain further PCA 9685s to drive more servos as required. There's a lot more extensibility in this set-up as well.

 

Check it out at https://dcc-ex.com/index.html#gsc.tab=0

 

 

[bandmbill]

DCC-EX has got a lot going for it - I have a test system to play with - at present no support for RailCom at present.

 

Hans Tanner has added LocoNet support search for IoTT on YouTube….

 

I like the Uhlenbrock DCC stuff - the Daisy 2 throttle is very easy to use….

[Jon Harbour]

Yes - Railcom support would be nice. I imagine it might be complex to implement though.

[bandmbill]

There has been discussion on the DCC-EX Discord server…….

 

If I understood  the discussion on there then it is a timing issue with some of the possible hardware configurations….

 

 

[Jon Harbour]

I must confess I find the Discord format of discussion hard to follow! It lives up to its name in a way.

 

I much prefer structured thread format. With the free structure of Discord, I suspect that the same questions are answered over and over again because the original answer is buried inside the pile of messages. 

 

But then I suppose the intent is that support for an issue is fairly instantaneous and not intended for later reference.