Nigelcliffe

The principle of LEDs in panels is fairly common, and is largely the same for any motor. The LEDs only tell you the switch position, wires back from the turnout tell you the motor has moved - its possible to operate a switch and a disconnected wire to the turnout motor means nothing has moved - so always ask whether the LED is actually adding anything over what a switch shows. There can be cases where a switch is used, and LEDs are added to indicate what's happening in other places affected by the switch. The photo shows one I made earlier, part of a set for "Burntisland 1883" - the LEDs indicate the other half of each cross-over, controlled by the rotary switch with a large pointer. But where switches don't control multiple turnouts (eg. yellow knob on left) there are no LEDs as the switch clearly indicates the route set. (3D printed switch knobs of my own design. Panel is laser cut clear acrylic, with the lettering and coloured tracks lasered from behind into the cream base-colour on rear of acrylic. ). The exact detail of wiring depends on the turnout motor. The MP1 has a centre-common motor, and two other wires (one for each direction). Motors like the Cobalt-Analogue or the Tortoise (or a different MTB motor) might have a two-wire reversing connection, which results in a different wiring arrangement. Servo motor control boards are different again. And so on. - Nigel

NO!!! You said you didn't want all the complication and expense of accessory decoders. The power supply (red and black in the diagrams) is DC or AC. ie. whatever the turnout motor specifies (MP1 in this case). You can switch the DCC power to frogs using the purple/green shown connecting to rails on the left of drawing. - Nigel

Adding to Phil's diagram.... if LEDs are wanted then within the rectangle on left which is the control panel, connect LED+Resistor between the Red supply wire and the relevant black turnout direction output wire.

Why do you need LEDs ? A decent switch (toggle or rotary) shows its position clearly when moved. Rotary switches(*) with "pointer" style knobs are particularly clear on mimic diagrams. Wiring for a MP1 requires a power source and a single-pole change-over switch to decide between the two terminals on the MP1 (one for each direction). If wanting LED's, you connect them between the switch outputs and the common wire returning from the MP1 to the power supply (ie. parallel to the MP1 motor). Every LED will require a current limiting resistor. When wiring the layout, the common wires from many MP1's can be combined. Maker's wiring diagram: https://www.mtb-model.com/files/produkty/MP1-setup_CZ_EN_DE.pdf (* make sure you buy "break before make" rotary switches. The "make before break" type can cause issues in the middle of their change-over. ).

Peco's OO turnouts are different. The OO turnouts provide gaps between the blades and the frog. To create those in the N-gauge electrofrogs requires cutting rails, and connecting wires to rails. Can be done well, but from the pictures I see posted, often ends up as a messy massive gap. Or there are other ways.

I'd like 100% headroom, so 400mA at a MX600 with its 800mA continuous rating. I've no idea what motor is in use. However, if it is one of High Level's recent coreless, then I'd be surprised if it got as high as 0.6A. I've not tried stalling one and measuring.

The only electrical issue I encountered is that Peco don't provide a pigtail so you have to either solder to the wires on the underside of the frog or direct to the frog rails and in both cases be careful of the plastic. OK, short version of the Essay. Out of the box, a Peco N Electrofrog has frog switching provided by the blades touching the stock rails. This works fine until someone does something to stop it working - dirt, paint, ballast, distortion from how its laid, etc.. If someone adds a wire to the frog, and a switch (such as using the switch in the Cobalt mentioned above), then there are now two switches altering the polarity of the frog. If one of the switches changes over and makes contact whilst the other is still connected the "original way", then there is a short circuit. This causes the track power on a DCC system to turn off. (Its also a short on a DC layout, but those are usually less drastic, and if the track power in the vacinity of the turnout was turned down to zero when the turnouts move, there is no recorded short circuit.) With some motor installations, the switches (blades and motor switch) move together; the internal switches in the motor change whilst the blades are mid-travel (not connected to anything) and no short occurs. But that's not really a good solution as a slight delay in a switch breaking to "nothing" will still have a short. There are numerous proposed fixes, all with various positive and negative consequences. The Unifrog is different to the Electrofrog. - Nigel

You missed out "expensive" from the attributes. A very expensive system compared to using a DTM30.

You'll have to trace it yourself (I'd guess one end or the other of the row of five). The official documentation has "ground" on the top surface of the decoder, between two components, and is more tricky to connect. Zimo's tech support might tell you if you ask, but they may just point to the official manuals. When asking about other decoders, I'd look for 100% head-room. So, a 0.6A motor would need a decoder rated for 1.2A continuous. I might go lower in some situations.

I think you've got "wrong end of stick" The switch contacts on the Cobalt motors are just "switches", they can switch anything. So, any of the Cobalt's switches can switch your frog current(*) The IP_Digitals have an internal digital decoder, so you don't need any other devices. (However, if you power/control them from a separate accessory bus of DCC, then don't use the "frog" terminal" as that connects your track to the accessory bus, which you were trying to separate. Instead use the regular contacts). The IP Analogue needs a decoder if you are operating it from DCC signals. The ADFX is one option. However, before you jump, you say "switches on a mimic panel". To make these switches control accessory decoders, you need more electronics, to connect the switches to the LocoNet input to the Zephyr. There are various boards which can do this, including some low-cost DIY things. One of the long-established finished boards is the DTM-30 from Signatrak (its a good board with a lot of powerful features, hard to beat unless you DIY your own). BUT, for a layout which is fairly compact, do you need to use DCC to operate the turnouts ? It does reduce panel to layout wiring, but adds a pile of cost (electronics to encode the switches, decoders to decode to the motor). Conventional switch wiring would be cheaper (removing two sets of components), though requires more wires travelling from switch panel to layout. Or, staying with the DCC accessory decoders on the turnout motors, one could use a software mimic control panel (eg. running on an iPad or Android tablet), which is a negligble wiring, and may be a low-cost solution. There are other motors around, notably MTB which Iain mentions above. (* there are issues around how electrofrogs in N gauge are wired, that's a whole separate essay ). - Nigel

The decoder 0 volts, often labelled as "ground" or "mass"(German) in diagrams and documentation. In the case of the MX600, it is a solder pad on the decoder, illustrated earlier in the thread. The stay-alive is providing a temporary power-source for the decoder, so it is connected to the decoder positive and decoder ground, which power everything in the decoder. I'd regard that as marginal. Yes, its under the rated continuous, but not by a large margin. You'll probably be OK, but I'd want more headroom, so different decoder.

I assume you have checked that the "stall current" of the motor is within the output capabilities of the MX600 ?

Easily solved and thus not something which stops a layout: Solution A - drive properly and drive to the signals. Then you never run into incorrectly set turnouts. Solution B - try to drive properly, and when it fails, you can move things manually. Solution C - separate the track bus from the accessory bus, and fit independent cut-outs to the track bus. This is usually recommended for all but the smallest/simplest of layouts, and means that a fault on the track bus (track short circuit) does NOT stop the accessory bus (turnout motor controls) from working. Separating layouts into zones with their own cut-outs means that a fault in one zone of track does not shut down the rest of a larger layout. Thus, someone could be ignoring signals in one place and causing short circuits, but the rest of the layout carries on working. All regular solutions which avoid "total layout shutdown". - Nigel

Raise the issue with Zimo, or the supplier of your decoder. There have been some bugs in some firmware versions on MS-series decoders. Most are fixed with a firmware update (can be done at home if you have suitable hardware, or can be done by better dealers).

Note that Staco 1 is a different product to Staco 3, follow the correct wiring instructions, including number of capacitors and/or changes to the Staco 1 PCB to accommodate the chosen number of capacitors. Staco 3 is a bit simpler as there are no options on number of capacitors. ZImo's manuals, for the product and the decoders, cover the connections, with pictures and words. Large energy storage capacitors wired wrongly can go bang.

In principle any decoder can have a stay-alive fitted. But to do so requires identifying the correct contacts. Dapol are terrible at supplying decent manuals for their products (no diagram of the PCB, describes the "sound fitted" as having a Zimo MX638 decoder (which is not a sound decoder...) , links to their decoder manuals don't work, etc.. ). . A 21 pin socket has both "VCC" and "Ground" as pins, the stay-alive circuit goes onto those pins. Whether there is easy connection to those on the Dapol PCB depends on Dapol and their manuals (see above). The Dapol decoder probably needs analogue running disabled in CV29 (a guess, but its likely a fairly basic decoder which can't tell the difference between "stay alive DC" and "track DC").

There's the much older RRampmeter, but doubt that's a lot cheaper. Or there are numerous ways of DIY-ing the same, but depends on your electrical skills and exactly what you are trying to measure. Knowing the exact track voltage, or exact current, doesn't seem important to me. Knowing there is track voltage (a simple LED/light could do this), and knowing the current hasn't got near over-load from too many locos is worth knowing. Current could be measured leaving the power supply, or entering the power supply (both are simple to do).

Well the answer you got was rubbish, CV65 contains part of the version number of the software running on the decoder. Your supplier is also rubbish if they can't answer this sort of thing, use a different supplier. There are manuals for Zimo's decoders on Zimo's website. CV60 is the general dimming value in Zimo, BUT things can be very complicated depending how the lighting is setup in the decoder - there are dimming masks (determine which outputs are dimmed) and if the function mapping is via Swiss Mapping, then there are individual dimming levels on each row in the mapping table. 1) Read the Zimo manual for MS/MN decoders, yes, they are complicated, jump around a bit, and sometimes convoluted. 2) Use software, such as JMRI/DecoderPro to set things up, its much easier than trying to alter lots of individual CVs and not knowing what you did (or there are other software packages, such as YouChoos' tweak and drive, and others listed on Zimo's website) 3) The LAIS resistor board values are far too low for your lights, which is why they are too bright. So, replace the resistors with different values. As to what value, don't know, experiment, try 10k and see what its like, then either double it or half the 10k and try again. Getting the resistors "about right" is much better than faffing with CV values. You could experiment with the Lais board in place, and then add a second series resistor until you've found an appropriate combined value, then replace the resistor on the Lais board with what you really needed.

1 - exactly how did you wire this ? As I understand them, DCC-Concepts Nano LEDs come with series resistors. I assume those were also fitted in series with the LEDs. As such, they would either "light" or "not light" depending whether the supply from the decoder was the right way round. The resistors would ensure that the current flow was minimal in any wiring combination. To cause a decoder failure implies a short circuit, which to my mind, means a mistake in wiring. Leaving out the resistors could result in an effective short circuit through the LED, which could be toast for a DCC Decoder. Accidentally connecting one side of the decoder directly to pickups could result in toasting a DCC Decoder - lighting circuits may use track for one side of their power *if done correctly*. 2 - three-wire two colour LEDs come as either common anode or common cathode. DCC-Concepts website says "common positive", so reasonable to assume that is correct. Resolution - needs understanding of the wiring changes being made.

The MX-series decoders are no longer made. You need to look at MN-series equivalents (MN-340 is MX638 replacement), which all the Zimo stockist will have. Zimo's pricing of some MX-series decoders in the UK seemed very much a "UK only" policy - they were never as cheap in other countries. And yes, things are more expensive because the components which go into them are more expensive (and DCC decoder makers are at the end of the component shortage queues as tiny niche makers of things when compared to most other uses).

As per Hamburger: a) you mean CV2 (not CV1). b) CV6 only exists in some ESU decoders, depends on the specific decoder type. Paul's might be "DCC only" types (North American) which do have CV6, or might be "multiprotocol" (European) which don't. Given his models are Chinese prototypes, there's no automatic assumption of one type or the other. Which means the solution is one of - use CV2 and (mostly) CV5 and hope to hit something full 28 point speed curve (definitely works, but highest amount of effort) CV5 and CV6 if it is a "DCC only" ESU decoder, and may get things close enough.

Paul has the relevant hardware for JMRI connection to layout and command station ( I've talked stuff through on the phone to configure LocoNet devices via a LocoNet-to-Computer link). Someone may have to demonstrate how it works, I think it's a tricky one to do remotely. Best arrangement is generous radius circuit, so the reference loco can be timed at each of the key speeds, and then the secondary locos adjusted to match the same timings at the same key speeds. Can run both at the same time and same speeds, with a gap between them, and see which is faster/slower, making adjustments to the speed curves as they are moving. If the speed matching is for double-heading, then additionally reducing the BEMF influence (another CV setting) will mean the locos will compensate internally for differences in speed (the faster one will take a little more draw-bar load and that will cause it to slow slightly).

If two (or more) locomotives have the same address, then they respond identically. By default, new decoders are set to address 3, which is why they all arrive as address 3. Sensible advice is to always program a new address into a new loco, and also give it a new name that makes sense to you. - Nigel

1 - stop overthinking this stuff. The Z21 sorts out the "loco address" and use that. Stop worrying about CVs. 2 - Addressing. There are three types of address in a DCC decoder that people will typically encounter; short address, long address and Consist Address. a) Short address. Takes values from 1 to 127, though some systems will only allow 1-99. This is stored in CV1. b) Long address. Takes values from 1 to 10,239. But the allowed values in systems varies, it might be 1-9999 or 100-9999 or 128-9983, or (pick different range of choice). The values are stored across CV17 and CV18, using a moderately awkward calculation method (or easy method if you're good at binary maths!). c) The decision inside a decoder to respond to the Long or Short address is set in CV29, along with lots of other things also set in CV29. d) If using an "Advanced Consist" (double/multiple heading method, and one of several ways of arranging double-heading), then the Consist Address is stored in CV19. If CV19 is not zero, the Consist Address applies, and the loco responds to that, rather than its locomotive address. Consist address is 1-127, adding 128 to the address means the loco runs backwards (eg. two class 20's running nose-to-nose, one needs to run backwards to the other). There are a few decoders which support long addresses in Consists, stored in a combination of CV19 and CV20, but this is a very small niche at present. 3) From the permitted addresses in various systems, there are certain loco addresses which should be avoided if wanting to move locos from one system to another. Addresses 100-127 might be "long" or "short" depending on system, so best avoided. Long addresses 0001-0099 are likely to confuse, so avoid those if your system allows them as long addresses. And Long addresses above 9983 might not work on some systems. Tools for calculating CV29 and CV17/CV18 are on the webpage I wrote a dozen years ago: https://www.2mm.org.uk/articles/cv29 calculator.htm

There are many elements in making a wheel, and the centre is only one of them. You need to think about: a) getting power from the rim to whatever pickup your loco contains. If re-wheeling a commercial loco, that's either wiper pickups on back of wheels, or its pickup on a tube in the centre of the wheel. If a typical 2mm kit chassis, it's split frame onto the axle. Obviously new pickups could be fabricated for the loco, but that's another small fiddly thing to add to a loco. b) fixing the axle so it is perpendicular to the wheel. A narrow wheel print has a tendency to go slightly squint and give a wobbly wheel. Hence 2mm Scale Association wheels have an axle with a flange to seat in the rear of the wheel. The current stainless prints have a recess on their rear face for the flange to sit in (doing it flush will result in too little clearance from wheel to chassis). c) fixing the crankpin so it is perpendicular to the wheel, in a manner which allows the crank-pin "nut" to be secured to the crankpin. Typically people solder fine washers to crankpins as the "nut", so that's heat going into the crankpin, which mustn't move/melt the wheel. d) securing the rim to the centre. Typically its done with a retaining compound (from either Loctite or 3M), which in turn requires some space to expand into - create the space in the 3D print. I'm quite certain that resin printed centres can work, but there are a lot of things to consider to get them from a nice looking centre to a functional wheel. Several people have used resin prints as prototypes, then transfer that design to use as investment in brass casting processes. - Nigel (designer of the current 2mm Scale Association shop wheels ).