[Nygma]

Hi Everyone,

I was unsure whether this should go to the DCC topic, but I guess you guys are more experienced with radio control. In my earlier topic Dennis mentioned that in time I might what to change from DCC to radio control. To be honest, one reason I picked scale 1 is the superb sound of the locos, and features provided by DCC (I had analogue before).
I was checking Airwire 900 that was mentioned before, and if I understand it right I need to strip the DCC unit and change it to Airwire decoder. So the loco will not longer be DCC compatible. Is this correct?

Let's say I have a Aristocraft Class 66 with it's DCC and sound decoder, all set up (acceleration, breaking etc.) and I am happy with that. Is there any product in the market that lets me keep the DCC and sound decoder but also enable radio control? E.g. instead of getting the power and the DCC signal from the track, the power is supplied by the onboard batteries and the DCC is coming from a receiver unit. Eventually my loco would work (accelerate, break) and sound the same way on rail and radio control.

Thanks,
Csongor

 

[dwb]

I know what you need, but I doubt that it exists in a form you could use. Essentially you need to replace the DCC packet transport (ie the running rails) with wireless. Now wireless controllers exist but they feed direct into command stations which then feed the running rails. If there were a way to separate the wireless receiver and "intelligence" in the command station and put it in the loco powered by the batteries, you'd be up and running. The only way to do that would be to extract the appropriate parts of a DIY system and brew your own.

A possible alternative would be to find an existing radio control system which has a SUSI interface on the controller board in the loco. You might be able to use this to feed any DCC sound decoder which has a SUSI input. This way you could have DCC sound but you still have the radio control doing the driving. It might be worth checking the dietz website - I think it's www.d-i-e-t-z.co.de (I think there's an entry in the links section). Dietz specialise in electronics for large scale railways so maybe there is something there that might help.

Failing that, check out some of the German garden railway sites. They love technology so maybe some company already has what you want.

Good luck!

David