Eke Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 Hello! In a couple of Swedish module clubs we have since a couple of years used and developed a combined controllerbus for modell Railway purpose. It is no new technologi, just a new packaging of existing techniques that makes it possible to mix Loconet and Xpressnet! It has turned out so well that we want to spread it to other hobby friends! This autumn some of us has made a technical description and i have also made a homepage to put it in! (My first so don´t hesitate to give feedback if needed) We have written it in English and will later translate it to other languages! It contains all that you need to know about the EkeBus! But there are also some minor documents in Swedish that i probably will translate later, but the main documentation cover the thing the very good! The homepage is under Construction but good enough to publish i think! It will be uppdated and improved with some better frensh for example ( having a friend looking at that at the moment) but that´s no big issue in UK i Think! There are also a link to a Yahoo Group where discussions can be conducted between hobbyists in different countries. Most of the material can be made at home with cheap standard Components if you are a Little handy! So, here it is! The first link outside sweden to EkeBus that makes that Loconet and Xpressnet are no more completly incompatible! http://ekebus.se/ Friendly greetings from Sweden! Eke and friends Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 Interesting. I can see the benefits of this but it does require someone (ie not me...) who is technically minded and has the time to make the various bits. I'm still not sure I understand exactly how it works or what is required to make it work ... but the principle certainly has merit from what I can see. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crosland Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 It seems to me to be just a wiring scheme to allow Loconet and Xpressnet throttles to be connected to command stations that already support both, i.e., you have a Hobson's choice of the Z21. There is no protocol conversion so you couldn't, for example, connect Loconet throttles to a command station that only supports Xpressnet, or vice-versa. Andrew Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eke Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 Hello Andrew! You are absolutely right about it is just a new wiring solution, but it solves many problems! As the system is developed for modular Railway layouts were many members with different makes of digital Equipment want to use their stuff we don´t have to decide something that will exclude some members. And i Think some of us think it´s nice to have more throttle alternatives to mix for the home layout to when you don´t have to choose between Loconet and Xpressnet. The protocol conversion is made in a suitable central unit and it´s not only the Z21 that can manage that, so there are no Hobson´s choice i think. And perhaps there will come more alternatives in the future! Digikeijs new central unit handles both Loconet and Xpressnet. ESU ECoS have a possibility to connect a loconetadapter and together with a Lenz or Roco Multimaus system on the sniffer it should be quite capable i think. Perhaps a Intellibox with a Mausadapter for Xpressnet should work? I´m not familiar with how the Mausadapter works. But if you want two Xpressnets i´m afraid that the Z21 is the only choice! The drawing for the bus adapter that merges the Three buses into the RJ45 network is made for Z21, if you choose the alternative with more than one central unit by using a sniffer bus you should connect the ground from all central units together i think. The Z21 does that internally for the buses, thats why the Xpressnets doesn´t have more than A and B in the connectors. Friendly greetings / Eke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon H Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 Although the reasons for including two Xpressnet connections is explained, I suspect that this new 'bus' wiring arrangement would find much wider acceptance if one of these RS485 pairs was changed to a CAN connection instead. Loconet and Xpressnet are somewhat limited in their capabilities, so it seems likely that one or other variants of CAN based interface (MERG CBUS, OpenLCB, etc) is likely to become the preferred option in future as a layout 'bus' system, at least for accessory control if not for everything in the longer term. Clearly the current bus description is mainly aimed at proprietary throttle interconnections, but accessory control is a vital part of any layout so it seems a shame not to take this into account too. Of course, there is nothing to stop people adopting such a variation themselves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eke Posted December 16, 2015 Author Share Posted December 16, 2015 Hello again! @Gordon H Actually the first draft had an canbus instead of Xpressnet 2, But when the projekt came to realisation Roco had still not decided what canbus that should be implemented in the Z21, and there were also no users accept for Märklin ones that used canbus! (and märklin systems are not very suitable for modular railways) Later Roco decided that Zimo was the can system that they would support. And i know just one Zimo user in sweden!!! When Roco also let the R-BUS as an alternative could be configurated as an extra Xpressnet it was an easy choice to drop the canbus and go for Xpressnet 2 instead! It solved our problems with to few Xpressnet adresses and works very well. And i think we reach the most of the users with Loconet and the two Xpressnets. And in our modular clubs we reached almost 100%! I think the need for a accessory bus can be solved with a parallell accessory bus at home layouts, and for big modular layouts we have had an discussion if we perhaps could replace the RJ12 loconet network with a new wiring that includes a accessory bus and some other alternatives to in the future. It´s also by most modular standards banned to use the throttle and dcc bus for accessories for some reasons, one is to keep the dcc traffic as low as possible due to the fact that there are a lot of trains rollin at the same time and we wish to have the dcc signal as clean as possible, there are also a higher risk of faults that could be hard to find if there are a lot of accessory decoders and input devices connected to the system. So the accessories is prefered to have an own system that not is connected to the throttle buses. The EkeBus is solely for driving your trains, at least at modular meetings. At home it´s free to do anything, even with EkeBus! It´s also a big advantage that you newer could put the throttle in the wrong throttle jack as with the normal RJ12 loconet and Xpressnet jacks. And when you use the different throttles you never notice that there are three systems involved, you could steel locomotives over the system boarders and the throttles would react as if it is another throttle on the same bus, but it isn´t always, it could be a Loconet throttle that steels a loco from a Xpressnet throttle and vice versa but it behaves like one system! But i know perhaps to little of your conditions in UK, in sweden Xpressnet and Loconet is almost 100% beside Märklin systems! Which systems are the most popular in UK? Friendly greetings / Eke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon H Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 First, I should say that I personally have little interest in modular layouts, thought there are groups in the UK that do. Also, I can't really comment on the popularity of commercial DCC systems in the UK because I don't use any of them, preferring to either design my own or adapt the various MERG offerings. Reading the topics here on RMWeb you might get an idea of relative commercial popularity. My own interest is more in the control aspects of layouts than actually running trains, hence my emphasis about the lack of a specific layout control bus connection in the Eke system. Again, I have never used DCC for controlling accessories - only for driving trains, as that is what it is good at. The essentially unidirectional nature of DCC communications ruled it out for use with accessories for me right from the start. Long before I started using DCC for driving the trains I had already developed my own accessory control system, the modules from which still have their uses, though if I were constructing a layout today I would use the MERG CBUS system which is CAN based. There is work going on with this now to allow it to expand to larger, perhaps modular, layouts where the number of bus nodes approaches or exceeds the usual maximum allowed on a single CAN network, so that several such networks can be bridged together. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Just adding to the CANBus comments above, you may also want to look into the 'new' LCC spec announced recently by NMRA. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eke Posted December 26, 2015 Author Share Posted December 26, 2015 Hello again from Sweden! It has been a time since last post here and i have now some time to write again at my christmas holiday. We still have the discussion about the accessory bus and we have one Eye on what happens whit the NMRA-net projekt and other accessories solutions. There are many ideas of which the right way is, some of us think an extra Loconet would work fine as there are many ready to use Products as well as kits available. But nothing is decided yet. And for the EkeBus i Think it is not solely intended for modular layouts even if that was the first aim, it is very nice at home as well! In fact it is a much simpler set up at home as you can se at the end of the technical description and its very nice to not necessarily have to choose between Loconet and Xpressnet when you can have both! I hope you have had a nice christmas and i wish you a happy new year! Eke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
teetrix Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Hi Eke, at first happy new year to you! Thank you for pointing me to Digikejs! It seems to be very interesting. I have posted a link to the DCC specialists in our german forum - let's see what they have to comment, if there's anything interesting I will post it here too. Your EkeBus solution is stunning, although our module group is already 100 % wireless (regarding control of course :-) ). We're using touchcab, the Roco App and one more Android app I don't remember atm. The first ESU wireless control units are already in use too. best regards Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eke Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 Hello! We have made a small film clip last weekend on a modular meet in Värnamo Sweden! The quality is not that high as it was filmed with a mobile phone, but it shows how the Three controll buses interact with each other through the Z21! http://ekebus.se/film%20clip.html Friendly greetings and a nice new 2016 to all of you! Eke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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