Battery conversion - utilising built in DCC sound light boards

Neil Holiday said:
When converting a loco to battery power is it possible to utilising existing built in DCC sound \ light functions?
Click to expand...

Yes,
You will get the same functionality as running the DCC loco on analogue power..

You *may* be able to use any trigger inputs on the decoder to trigger sounds like the whistle, or bell. - This will depend on you being able to program the decoder to respond to these inputs. So you would need to alter these, or get someone to do it for you.

You would also find that you needed to turn the controller up a fair way before anything happened. - DCC electronics needs about 5-6 volts before it comes to life. If you were to turn your controller to 'zero', the sound and lights would go off as well as the loco stopping.
This is why most people strip the DCC decoder out. - It can be sold-on, to help fund the conversion.
 
Hi, thus far I have managed to get to grips with Sound OK, see my threads re Fosworks and Aristo in the Battery Forum. I am assuming that if the Chip is fully wired up in a loco without change other than to power it via a Battery no problems should exist with Lights. However as yet I have only got round to using a Test Rig without Lights.

Am about to update my first Loco but at the moment am grappling with the issues of remapping the sounds that I want and with the Setup that I will be using will probably not have the ability to turn lights on/off, not that this bothers me in the slightest.
 
Yes, use a DCC battery solution such as the REVO DCC or Tam Valley/Stanton combination and you will have control of DCC functions, all of the them when using the REVO DCC although getting to the higher numbers ones is somewhat clunky.
 
Just to clarify that our OMNI r/c system for DCC automatically turns on the lights for the direction of travel but does not allow manual override. Functions F1 to F12 are available on the handset. Higher functions than this would have to be re-mapped to one of these or set to operate at intervals. We offer a decoder reprogramming service, but it is rarely required, as the functions of interest on most sound projects are in the F1-F12 range. Using the existing DCC on the loco does make for an easy install, simply add battery, divert track pick-ups to our OMNI Rx4 receiver and away you go.

Best regards
Steve Foster

www.fosworks.co.uk
 
Steve Foster said:
Just to clarify that our OMNI r/c system for DCC automatically turns on the lights for the direction of travel but does not allow manual override. Functions F1 to F12 are available on the handset. Higher functions than this would have to be re-mapped to one of these or set to operate at intervals. We offer a decoder reprogramming service, but it is rarely required, as the functions of interest on most sound projects are in the F1-F12 range. Using the existing DCC on the loco does make for an easy install, simply add battery, divert track pick-ups to our OMNI Rx4 receiver and away you go.

Best regards
Steve Foster

www.fosworks.co.uk
Click to expand...

Steve, does your system transmit the DCC command signal over the wireless connection (as in the Tam Valley DRS) or use a proprietary protocol for the radio and then generate the DCC command signal within the receiver (the way that the new Revo system does it)?

Jon.
 
Steve Foster said:
Just to clarify that our OMNI r/c system for DCC automatically turns on the lights for the direction of travel but does not allow manual override. Functions F1 to F12 are available on the handset. Higher functions than this would have to be re-mapped to one of these or set to operate at intervals. We offer a decoder reprogramming service, but it is rarely required, as the functions of interest on most sound projects are in the F1-F12 range. Using the existing DCC on the loco does make for an easy install, simply add battery, divert track pick-ups to our OMNI Rx4 receiver and away you go.

Best regards
Steve Foster

www.fosworks.co.uk
Click to expand...
Steve I replied to Greg in another post suggesting that there was only 6 Functions. Have you upgraded your handset already?
 
Hi Guys,

the OMNI system uses a standard 2.4GHz radio protocol and generates the DCC commands in the receiver. We now offer both 6 and 12 function handsets after customer feedback on the initial shipments.

Best regards
Steve Foster
 
Hi Greg,

there are actually only three buttons on top and we add one shift button for 6 function and 2 shift buttons for 12 function. The shift buttons are tactiles and it's easy to feel that you have them pressed. We did consider more buttons, but everyone seemed to like the feel of this in the hand and that it can be operated without looking at it, as the buttons are well spaced apart.

Regards
Steve
 
Thank you for the speedy reply. I've been involved in consumer devices for some time, and it's my opinion likewise that tactile feel and the ability to operate without being forced to look are paramount benefits for this hobby where you want to be focused on the loco/train.

I would guess that people might indeed remap some of the sound functions to group them differently than "stock"... being in the US, there's very little standardization of function mapping other than bell, horn/whistle, and F8 for mute is pretty common... everything else is all over the map.

Regards, Greg
 
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