Mr Bach-man: How about a seperate "DCC" Forum?

Len · March 26, 2007, 02:37:14 PM

I've been poking through the various Discussion Forums on this Message Board, and see DCC questions scattered all over the place. In many cases they are the same questions, but asked for different scales or interests, e.g., HO, On30, Thomas.

A question may get answered in the HO Forum, while basically the same question in another Forum, e.g., Thomas, may not. This may be because no one there knows the answer, and the HO person with the answer doesn't look at the other Forums.

I believe it would make more sense to create a "DCC" specific Forum, and get those questions in one location. Regardless of scale or interest, it would give those interested in DCC a single place to exchange information and learn from each other.

How about it Mr. Bach-Man??

Len

WoundedBear · March 26, 2007, 05:39:57 PM

Would this be DCC in general, or more geared towards the EZC set by Bmann?

Personally I would like to see it aimed at the EZC user.....there are numerous boards out there for the other DCC systems.

Sid

Len · March 26, 2007, 06:30:58 PM

Sid,

In a word, both!

The majority of the DCC questions I found related to installing decoders in specific locomotives and programming them. And in many cases the answer will not be an EZC decoder. There were also questions specific to the EZC system, and a few related to other systems.

Since the questions are already being asked, just spread out all over the place, I don't see any reason they can't coexist in the same forum.

Len

WoundedBear · March 26, 2007, 07:16:00 PM

I understand where you're coming from, and agree.....I just don't want to see the forum turn into a Digitrax troubleshooting manual....know what I mean?

Personally, I own the EZC....I would love to hear how people get around the programming issues and am really thinking about exploring that little I/O port a bit more. Has anyone done any experimenting on these units?

I don't believe for one second that the Bman DC controller or the Bman power booster are the only options, even though the literature says it is. I'm stubborn, if nothing else....lol.

Sid

Hunt · March 27, 2007, 01:51:03 AM

This issue has been covered in a couple of topics.

Bach-manâ€™s decision to date has been to leave DCC at the Topic level. So unless there is an epiphany; you will need to use the Bachmann Board Search feature to group (or find) the DCC posts.

Hunt · March 27, 2007, 02:35:31 AM

Quote from: WoundedBear on March 26, 2007, 07:16:00 PM
Personally, I own the EZC....I would love to hear how people get around the programming issues and am really thinking about exploring that little I/O port a bit more. Has anyone done any experimenting on these units?

This is off topic so will not go into details...

Did testing and perhaps to Bachmannâ€™s point of view, it is just as well my "stuff" is all on the old board.

E-Z Command Control Center is compatible with a DCC booster built to conform to NMRA RP-9.1.2 Opto-isolated (Current) Interface.

Seems to me, the I/O port is not Lenz X-Bus protocol as you may read in some sources.

Jim Banner has placed some info here http://members.shaw.ca/sask.rail/dcc/EZcommand/index.html

Len · March 28, 2007, 11:25:18 AM

Quote from: Hunt on March 27, 2007, 01:51:03 AM
This issue has been covered in a couple of topics.

Bach-manâ€™s decision to date has been to leave DCC at the Topic level. So unless there is an epiphany; you will need to use the Bachmann Board Search feature to group (or find) the DCC posts.

I'm not that energetic!

The way it's growing, it doesn't make sense to me that DCC doesn't have it's own Forum. Oh, well.

WoundedBear · March 28, 2007, 12:06:19 PM

There's a grand total of 8 threads in the Plasticville Forum.....if bandwidth and storage space is a problem, why not just relabel it to DCC and Plasticville?.....at least that way things might be easier to find in the future....I doubt we're gonna hit 50-60 pages of threads in that forum.

Sid

Len · March 28, 2007, 01:02:33 PM

Sid,

I think you're on to something. I never looked in the Plasticville Forum, as I didn't think there'd by anything on DCC there. I also think there's a major disparity in interest between Plasticville and DCC.

So why does Plasticville have a Forum, and EZC/DCC doesn't?

It makes no sense at all.

Len

Seasaltchap · March 28, 2007, 04:37:13 PM

Len : Frustrating isn't it! I am one of those previous threads that came to the same end as this.

Plasticville is a good example of wasted space, when obviously either DCC or OO would use the opportunity more fully.

"Normalisation" of Bachmann's attributes ain't going to happen.

gwfan · March 29, 2007, 03:42:10 AM

Last time I asked Mr. Bachmann (politely) to consider changing Plasticville to something else - my message got ditched! Careful what you ask for you might find you are banned.........

Chris

WoundedBear · March 29, 2007, 10:46:57 AM

Quote from: gwfan on March 29, 2007, 03:42:10 AM
Last time I asked Mr. Bachmann (politely) to consider changing Plasticville to something else - my message got ditched! Careful what you ask for you might find you are banned.........

Chris

Well, if a simple suggestion like that is enough to have one's self banned, then I think the moderators of this site are a little too uptight. Isn't this forum all about "customer service" ultimately?

Sid

gcodori · March 29, 2007, 12:51:36 PM

Personally, I own the EZC....I would love to hear how people get around the programming issues and am really thinking about exploring that little I/O port a bit more. Has anyone done any experimenting on these units?

Well, the I/O port has to be some kind of version of the Xpressnet Bus by Lenz which is open and well documented. I believe the only issue is figuring which pins of the IO port are what.

The xpressnet bus uses 4 wires, while the EZC has an 8 pin connector. I'm guessing the 4 wires are duplicated or repeated.

Xpressnet is-
2 wires are for Ground and +12 volts. Should be easy to find with a voltmeter.

2 wires are RS-485 (data). Should be able to locate these with SHOWDCC (a simple circuit that allows a microphone jack of a laptop to "sniff" DCC packets and display then in Windows). SHOWDCC is here (and free)
http://www.digitoys-systems.com/ShowDCC_e.htm

There you go! Why not be the first to discover the IO port mystery! Once you know what pin is what, it should be no problem to wire up a 8-pin to 4-pin telephone adapter. You can then use plain Lenz, Roco and other accessories. For example, there is a DIY Lenz/Roco throttle here -
http://www.tinet.org/~fmco/lokmaus_en.html#simplemaus

johndmuller · March 29, 2007, 06:41:53 PM

IMhO, the Bach-man's reluctance to add a DCC forum was mostly due to a desire to give the new forum a chance to get settled before starting in a whole new raft of changes. Perhaps he thinks that there may be other issues that may develop that could also be changed/introduced at the same time. Perhaps he needs a little time to get over his original decision not to have one in the initial version (no doubt he considered it originally).

Anyway, the fact of DCC cutting across the scales does make it somewhat of a problem - are there any other potential forum subjects that also cut across scales - if we came up with at least one, then there could be the set of scale forums along with another set of forums independent of scale. Perhaps that would make it more palatable.

Hunt · March 31, 2007, 12:10:59 AM

gcodori,
The Bachmann I/O port ... not Lenz XpressNET protocol.

News:

Mr Bach-man: How about a seperate "DCC" Forum?