DCC Controller upgrade

[younGGuns7]

I am wanting advise on controllers, I have a Dynamics Ultima however I believe it has limitations I.e. you cannot go above setting 20 and some of the latest locos go well above this and also only 30? Loco address’s can be stored. My question is what is the best budget upgrade? Is the NCE Power Cab starter an upgrade? Are there my other other alternatives ? TIA

[MichaelE]

I'm not familiar with the controller you are currently using.

 

I used the NCE Powercab for five years before upgrading to the ESU Cab Control. 

 

My layout and locomotives outgrew the Powercab's paltry 2A limit, and it was also not producing enough voltage at the railhead for the European decoders my locomotives use. Might be fine for US based products, but ESU likes to see 16V at the railhead.

 

If you don't plan on more than three or four sound locomotives the Powercab should work fine.

 

The ESU Cab Control allows for current and voltage adjustment to suit your requirements. NCE does not without having to buy additional boosters, and even so, the voltage is not adjustable.

[jamesed]

This is a frequently discussed topic of discussion and you will  receive a lot of recommendations.

 

For what it's worth, my opinion is that one should question why anyone would buy a NCE system which is a 30 year old design using old technology and has a number of known shortcomings.  However, it appears they still have plenty of customers.  I'd go a bit further and ask why anyone these days would buy any control system that relies upon remembering dcc address numbers and then having to punch them into a keypad.

 

I have a Roco Z21 system, like plenty of others on this forum, which I think is fantastic in pretty much every respect for me. It offers the latest technology and I find operating through a mobile device app works well for me. Some prefer to use it with a Multimaus device that has a knob to drive trains and you have that choice or a combination of the two. The Z21 can cope with all the expansion options you can think of.

 

If you don't think the Z21 is for you then I'd seriously recommend looking at the new Ace Signatrack 3 which, although perhaps not quite as advanced as the Z21 appears to be a great design using modern technology.

[YT-1300]

21 minutes ago, jamesed said:

This is a frequently discussed topic of discussion and you will  receive a lot of recommendations.

 

For what it's worth, my opinion is that one should question why anyone would buy a NCE system which is a 30 year old design using old technology and has a number of known shortcomings.  However, it appears they still have plenty of customers.  I'd go a bit further and ask why anyone these days would buy any control system that relies upon remembering dcc address numbers and then having to punch them into a keypad.

 

I have a Roco Z21 system, like plenty of others on this forum, which I think is fantastic in pretty much every respect for me. It offers the latest technology and I find operating through a mobile device app works well for me. Some prefer to use it with a Multimaus device that has a knob to drive trains and you have that choice or a combination of the two. The Z21 can cope with all the expansion options you can think of.

 

If you don't think the Z21 is for you then I'd seriously recommend looking at the new Ace Signatrack 3 which, although perhaps not quite as advanced as the Z21 appears to be a great design using modern technology.

Because it works and its rock solid!

 

The z21 (and Z21) is a great system, I got rid of mine as I had too many dropped signal and missing icons (Roco replaced the whole system twice but I was still getting the drop outs)

 

Whereas my NCE has never let me down in around 15 years of home and exhibition use

[Vecchio]

Another voice for z21. Works great, easy to understand, no more numbers to remember if you use a smart phone or tablet as a controller. 3A output, so you can have several locos running at the same time.  Point control (if you want to use it) works very well, also here no numbers, but a graphic representation of your layout on phone or tablet. rout programming, and the route is actually visible. If you want feedback and computer control go for the black one (Z21), if not the white one (z21) saves you a lot of money and does all I said before.  Use it in the club (Frimingham) and also at home (Donnersbachkogel).

[GrumpyPenguin]

13 hours ago, YT-1300 said:

Because it works and its rock solid!

 

The z21 (and Z21) is a great system, I got rid of mine as I had too many dropped signal and missing icons (Roco replaced the whole system twice but I was still getting the drop outs)

 

Whereas my NCE has never let me down in around 15 years of home and exhibition use

So does the Lenz LH100, but they are both old hat & dated.

 

If you were having drop-outs with the Z21 it may not have been the Z21 - what were you using with it ?

 

The Z21 gives you the best of both worlds - touch screen via a tablet, phone, iPad, Chromebook or you can go for a Multimaus (wired or wi-fi) - nice handheld (one handed), 40 loco "stack" & "sniffer" port to use another controller.

[WIMorrison]

z/Z21 connectivity issues most generally happen when people try to connect using their home WiFi, very rarely when using on a closed system such as supplied by Roco.

 

The z/Z21 will work perfectly well on a home WiFi but as the protocol used is UDP you need to have a good, stable WiFi that is not being passed through WiFi extenders and finally doesn't have too many hosts using the router at the same time. Most ISP supplied routers are very, very cheap and have extremely limited processing capability and on a busy network will see lots of packets dropped due to inability to process - not an issue with TCP, but a BIG problem with UDP.

Edited March 22 by WIMorrison
spelling corrected!

[YT-1300]

9 hours ago, chiefpenguin said:

So does the Lenz LH100, but they are both old hat & dated.

 

If you were having drop-outs with the Z21 it may not have been the Z21 - what were you using with it ?

 

The Z21 gives you the best of both worlds - touch screen via a tablet, phone, iPad, Chromebook or you can go for a Multimaus (wired or wi-fi) - nice handheld (one handed), 40 loco "stack" & "sniffer" port to use another controller.

They may be dated but if it suits what you need it for then there is no need to change.

 

I wanted to use the z21 to allow newer modellers to control my layout, using a phone and tablet to try encourage and keep their interest, it just wasn't reliable enough for me at the time.   Phone and tablet signals dropping out, and loss of comms between the z21 and the Roco router. 

 

When it worked, it was great.

 

This goes back to 2018 so I reckon those issues have most probably been ironed out.

[GrumpyPenguin]

2 hours ago, YT-1300 said:

This goes back to 2018 so I reckon those issues have most probably been ironed out.

As a matter of interest what App were yoiu using & was it fully updated ?

[WIMorrison]

2 hours ago, YT-1300 said:

This goes back to 2018 so I reckon those issues have most probably been ironed out.

 

I bought mine in 2017 and it hasn't so much as hiccupped since I bought it, the only attention it gets in when I upgrade the firmware which I would think has been done no more than half a dozen times, and that was only to enable new features. Still using same supplied TP Link router as well - again zero issues, and cannot recall ever having had an issue since it was switched on.

 

The only issue I have ever had was the Multimaus losing it configuration and a quick look at the manual (after having been pointed to the relevant paragraph) fixed that issue in less than 5 mins.

 

I can honestly say that the Z21 is the most stable and reliable DCC Command station that I have come across, and its ability to work with almost any wired throttle, many wireless throttles, phones/tablets and a fully documented computer interface make it one of the best around - even today.

[YT-1300]

19 minutes ago, chiefpenguin said:

As a matter of interest what App were yoiu using & was it fully updated ?

All I know was it was Roco's app, it was 6 years ago so I can't fully remember

 

I dealt directly with Roco to try iron out the issues I was having, and they were brilliant. we just couldn't get to the bottom of the issues, with 2 sets of equipment.

[YT-1300]

12 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

 

I bought mine in 2017 and it hasn't so much as hiccupped since I bought it, the only attention it gets in when I upgrade the firmware which I would think has been done no more than half a dozen times, and that was only to enable new features. Still using same supplied TP Link router as well - again zero issues, and cannot recall ever having had an issue since it was switched on.

 

The only issue I have ever had was the Multimaus losing it configuration and a quick look at the manual (after having been pointed to the relevant paragraph) fixed that issue in less than 5 mins.

 

I can honestly say that the Z21 is the most stable and reliable DCC Command station that I have come across, and its ability to work with almost any wired throttle, many wireless throttles, phones/tablets and a fully documented computer interface make it one of the best around - even today.

When it was working for me, I thought it was a fantastic system but unfortunately it wasn't reliable in my experience.  I liked the fact that any smartphone or tablet could be used and trackplans etc could be emailed over to different devices. 

 

If I was looking to do what I was doing back in 2018, and using sound etc then I would look at the z21 again.  For its price it seems the most capable and flexible system out there, at the moment though I'm sticking with my NCE as it does what I need it to do - driving a loco and switching lights on and off, when I remember!)

[younGGuns7]

Many thanks for this, this wasn’t even on the radar, when I first read your comments I thought, never far too complicated for me, however since watching a bit of YouTube it may be a game changer. I will keep exploring and may ask some more questions but again thanks 👍

[YT-1300]

4 minutes ago, younGGuns7 said:

Many thanks for this, this wasn’t even on the radar, when I first read your comments I thought, never far too complicated for me, however since watching a bit of YouTube it may be a game changer. I will keep exploring and may ask some more questions but again thanks 👍

Despite what I have said regards my experience with a z21, I would recommend it if you are wanting to use sound and modern lighting configurations, I'm not too sure of the differences between z21 and the Z21, and again it depends on what you want out of DCC now and in the future as to which Roco system will suit you.  Be mindful that you might be best to get the Roco router (and code) on top of the basic system to get the best out of it ( @WIMorrison will be able to help further with that)

 

Depending on your budget though, as per your first post, it may not be 'budget' enough

[Kaput]

24 minutes ago, YT-1300 said:

I'm not too sure of the differences between z21 and the Z21

 

This is a good comparison direct from Roco:

 

[younGGuns7]

1 hour ago, YT-1300 said:

 

 

Depending on your budget though, as per your first post, it may not be 'budget' enough

I think I was looking at the DCC system and thought that was really out of the window however I may be able to stretch to this especially if I can sell y Dynamics on as well