Ira,
I have some thoughts on your e-mail based on things I have read. I have no personal experience with DCS, but I have read a lot.
My comments should be in Blue below.
Ed Weltens
"Ira Schneider" <ira_schneider@Iname.com> Sent by: ttat-members-owner@aoot.com
10/28/2002 07:59 AM
Please respond to ttat-members
To: "TTAT Members" <ttat-members@aoot.com>
cc:
Subject: Flatonia Wrapup
Here is my two cents about Flatonia.
Setup was impossibly long. Jim, Bob, and I met in Flatonia at about 2:30 PM. We were joined
by Dwight and later by Randall and Ryan. Since Bob, Dwight, and Jim left earlier than Randall,
Ryan, and me, I don't think we ever had more than four people there at any one time. Randall,
Ryan, and I left around 8:00 PM. That means we spent 5-1/2 hours setting up! Actually, we
had the modules all together about 7:00 PM. We spent the last hour hooking up main power,
installing skyboards, and testing the tracks. It was a long evening.
On Saturday morning, I connected the MTH TIU, the Lionel Command Base, and the IC TPC
together to provide full functionality to both control systems. I downloaded the latest level
code to the MTH system. I set up my laptop to display the video from Bob's wireless camera
and mounted the camera on a caboose. The camera was in use all weekend, either being
pulled or pushed by some train on the layout. It was a real crowd pleaser (if you could call
the few people that came to the show a crowd). Scott was there early and installed his
scenery modules.
Saturday was a dreary, rainy day. There were relatively few visitors to the Czhilispiel. We only
had 5 members present during the day (Jim, Scott, Adrian, Dwight, and me), so we each got
a lot of track time. We experimented with running a TMCC engine using the MTH controller,
which worked OK. The major problem is that you have to define the TMCC engine to the
MTH system with a user-supplied name and it takes some time to enter the name into the
MTH handheld controller. Once the engine is defined, it seems to work well. We also found
out that the MTH handheld controller could control a TMCC engine on ANY track, not just track 2
(where the MTH TIU is connected).
This should be the case on any layout since TMCC commands are sent to the TMCC Command base which is connected to all the tracks. The communication between the DCS remote and the TMCC Command base allows for control of Lionel TMCC engines. I imagine that if Lionel were to reverse engineer the controls for DCS they would also require a TIU and you would need a new Lionel remote (Cab-2?) that would talk to the TIU.
The Lionel CAB-1s can also control TMCC engines on
any track, including track 2. We also found that if you press the e-stop button on the MTH
handheld controller it shuts down track 2 and sends a Halt command to all TMCC engines
running on any track, but does not send any commands to shut down track power. If you
press the Halt button on the CAB-1, it shuts down tracks 1, 3, and 4 and has no effect on
track 2 (except that it probably sends a Halt command to any TMCC engine running on track 2).
Everything sounds normal except for the behavior of the halt button on the TIU. It would be interesting to try this with the powermaster in conventional and command mode to see if there is a difference. The Cab-1 not affecting the track power on the DCS track sounds right since the TIU, which controls track power, does not listen to the Cab-1.
For some unexplained reason, I found the track signal for the MTH DCS system was rather
poor on this layout, even though it was pretty good at the AMRE show. I haven't any idea what
was different.
During beta testing and initial release, there were reports of a variety of environmental factors that could affect DCS signal strength. One of the main recommendations MTH makes is to make "home runs" to the TIU and transformer instead of a bus like we use on the club layout. I don't know exactly why they recommend this, but it has repeated shown to provide better results. There may also be some electrical issues that can have bearing on the signal strength.
We decided not to run the raffle at Flatonia due to mitigating circumstances, mainly the
bad weather and low visitor turnout.
Sunday we had similar weather and turnout. We had a couple of more members (Bob, Randall,
and Ryan were there, Dwight wasn't). Again, we had all the track time we wanted. (I was relieved
to be able to finally give up my track!)
I didn't take any pictures at this event, but Dwight and Randall did, so hopefully we will see
some pictures from someone else's point of view.
Overall, this was a good event for running trains, but a poor one for entertaining visitors. The
days were long and exhausting, but fun.